A few Random Stories

Story #1: In which we experience real-life surround sound

Andrew and I were talking late into the night the other night, trying to come up with a game plan of sorts. While we were discussing our transportation, I used the phrase, "For crying out loud!" for emphasis. As soon as those words were out of my mouth, we heard a cry from Rachel's room. Fortunately it was just one of those "I'm a noisy sleeper" cries and not a wake up cry.

Story #2: In which Rachel discovers salt

All of our stuff that used to be up high was moved to the living room floor yesterday morning so that we could pack it up. Rachel found this very entertaining. There were so many things that she'd never been allowed to touch, and a few items that she'd probably never even seen before in her life. She was having a great time going through everything, touching it and experimenting with it. And then she found the salt and pepper shakers. She grabbed the salt shaker and started shaking it up and down. She smiled happily while salt snowed down all around her.

I must have looked upset.

"Don't worry about it," Andrew assured me, "We can vacuum."

After he had said this, Rachel decided that shaking a salt shaker was a thing of a past and instead decided to use the salt shaker as a bottle. She lifted it up to her mouth, put the top inside, and gave it a good, solid suck.

You should have seen the look on her face! She put the salt shaker down and didn't bother with it again.

Story #3: In which Rachel bumps into Rachel

We went out to dinner last night. We have no food or dishes, so it was kind of necessary. Splurging wasn't necessary, but we decided to do it anyway since we hadn't since March. I've never been to the Olive Garden, so we decided to go there. While we were waiting, Rachel was wandering around the foyer making friends with every child that she saw. When there were no children around, she occupied her time by walking around in circles, looking at her feet.

This is a dangerous occupation. Her circles get wider and wider and the epicenter travels and she's not looking where she's going. You can imagine this can be dangerous.

So she's wandering around in circles and a hostess walks by. I tried to get Rachel's attention by calling her name, but my plan backfired.

"Rachel, stop!" I called out.

Rachel didn't hear me, but the hostess stopped and gave me a funny look. Rachel ran smack into her legs.

Rachel shook her head to recover from the blow and then continued on her tipsy, circular path. I glanced nonchalantly at the hostess's name tag. It read, "Rachel."

Story #4: In which Rachel is accused of speaking French

Rachel made friends with a four-year-old girl in the Olive Garden lobby. They kept handing toothpicks back and forth and chasing each other around. When the little girl decided she'd played long enough and started to walk back to her family Rachel was upset.

"Uhhhhh!" she called out after the girl, longing for her company again.

The little girl came back, overflowing with curiosity.

"Can your baby talk?" she asked.

"Not really," I said. But my answer wasn't good enough.

"Why did she talk to me, then?"

"Because she wanted to get your attention" Again, my answer wasn't good enough.

"But why didn't she use English?"

"Well, she can't really talk yet," I tried again.

"Oh," said the little girl, "If she doesn't speak English then does she speak French?"

Story # 5: In which Andrew loses his cell phone

Our landing pad has been relocated to Andrew's parents' basement. One of our kitchen chairs has taken its role, holding our wallets and keys and Andrew's cellphone. Unfortunately, the kitchen chair is a little more within Rachel's reach than the landing pad was so she can grab things off of it a lot easier. Things are often missing. Luckily there is next to nothing left in our house, so finding things usually doesn't take very long.

Except yesterday. We were getting ready to go run errands. Andrew went to fill his pockets with his keys, wallet, and cellphone. The keys and wallet were there, but the cellphone was missing.

After hunting around for a few minutes we asked Rachel where it was. She often knows where things like this are and will go get it for us if we ask her to. It's kind of like playing fetch with a puppy.

"Where's Daddy's cellphone?" Daddy asked, "Go get Daddy's cellphone..."

Rachel just shrugged her shoulders.

We hunted around a bit more until Andrew finally decided to phone his cellphone from our house phone. We heard no ring.

Andrew hung up without leaving himself a message and we decided to leave without his cellphone, so Andrew continued to load up his pockets. He reached in and found...his cellphone, on silent.