Conversations with Rachel

Our little Rachel is becoming quite the conversationalist, mostly when she thinks it will prolong bedtime.

She came into our room this morning and climbed onto our bed, whimpering about Grandma’s departure. She hid her head on my shoulder and said,

“Grandma’s gone!” sniffing all the while.

Then she lifted her head, got a wicked smile on her face and said quite happily,

“But guess who’s tomin’ in Dune?! Dachel’s tomin’!”

Periodically throughout the day we’ve all (mostly me, I think) broken down into tears about not having Grandma with us anymore and whenever we do, Rachel is sure to remind us about how we’ll be coming in June.

This evening Andrew and I sat down to watch The Day After Tomorrow after we had put Rachel to bed. Emily gave it to us for Christmas and neither of us had seen it so we decided to make a midweek date-night out of it, complete with popcorn.

At 10:30 Rachel appeared coyly in the doorway clutching baby Nora (for whom she has a rekindled interest).

“I need to go potty,” she announced.

“Then you’d better go,” we suggested.

Andrew followed her to the washroom. I continued to hold Miriam. (She has this thing about cluster-feeding before bed so I feel like I nurse her all evening long. She sleeps well so I suppose it’s a good tradeoff, but I think I was nursing her for two hours straight tonight!)

“What are you eating, Daddy?” Rachel asked.

“Nothing.”

“Were you eating popcorn?”

“I was. But now I’m not.”

“Oh. Are you watching a movie with Momma?

“Yes.”

“Can I watch it, too?”

“No. You need to go back to bed.”

“What’s your movie about?” she deflected.

“It’s about storms.”

“Oh. What is a suh-torm?”

“It’s when there’s a lot of wind and rain and snow, and sometimes…thunder!”

“Ooh! Thunder! Rudolph is scared of thunder. And the abominable snowman. He’s a monster. Do you have any monsters in your movie?”

“Nope. No monsters.”

“Only suh-torms?”

“Only storms.”

“Is it scary?”

“It’s kind of scary, yes.”

“I don’t like scary movies.”

“Let’s put you back to bed.”

She protested, of course, but she’s finally asleep.

And while we’re talking about Rachel, I’d like to openly mourn the following recent language developments:

1. She now says “Here I come” instead of “Here my comes.”
2. “Stairwsy,” meaning scary, has been replaced with “starey.”

It’s not that she’s getting less cute—I don’t think that’s possible at this point—it’s just that the old way of saying things was so endearing. Before I know it she’ll be saying, “Should I wear my shoes?” instead of “Should I wear my foose?”