Rachel's 'Tail

This morning, I put my hair up, which intrigued Rachel a great deal. She wanted to try it herself. I thought, "Why not?" As it turns out, she has enough hair for a tiny ponytail, held in place with just one (!) barrette, and she left it there almost all morning. Also as it turns out, a ponytail makes my baby girl look just so old! Can this be the bald infant who needed constant motion and slept on a wedge just a few nights ago? Sigh. How quickly she's growing up!

An update for those of you amused by the tale of the pink capris...

Saturday, the very morning after my last post, I managed to get Rachel fully dressed--shirt, pants, pink socks, shoes, even a smile!--all while she held the beloved capris in her hands. I was very pleased with myself. I even convinced her to put the capris on Dude, her teddy bear, and thought that would be sufficient. Ha. Not long after we had dressed Dude in his very dudely pink pants, I came upon a naked bear and this scene:


The child will not be deterred! So here's what we ended up with:

Not a bad look, I guess. And do note the triumphant smile! She has won! I suppose she chose those pink socks knowing all along what she was planning. The capris disappeared at the next diaper change and have not surfaced again since then. Very mysterious... Stay tuned for what I'm sure will be future installments of the Saga of the Pink Capris! (I have to admit, they are pretty cute! I sort of wish I had a pair. Couldn't you just see us out on the town together?)

P.S. Now that I've posted a photo of the BPC (Beloved Pink Capris), I should acknowledge their provenance. If only I could quite remember it. I think they came from the McG girls, but it's possible that they're from Claire. Either way, a big shout out and many thanks to our dear hand-me-downers! (Handers-me-down?) We appreciate it all!

Rachel the Fashionista

Rachel has become something of a fashionista lately, and while it's cute, I have to admit that I was not expecting her to have such strong opinions about clothing quite so soon. Getting dressed is occasionally fraught with disagreements about what is appropriate to wear. (Example: there is this adorable pair of pink polka-dotted capris that Rachel adores. Any morning that she spies them in the drawer, she insists on wearing them and will submit to poke her legs into nothing else. The weather here so far this spring has not been, how shall we say, conducive to wearing capris. More like snow pants, but that's another discussion. This weather-clothing correlation is difficult for the 18-month-old mind to grasp, even one so brilliant as our shining star's, and suffice it to say that we have had some interesting mornings.) One morning during our recent visit to Texas, she spied her windbreaker and had to put it on first:

She wore it all day, warm weather be darned!

Rachel's main interest in clothing is focused on socks. If I try to put a pair of socks on her without her having specifically chosen those socks, they come right off. Her preference is for pink socks, but when all the pink socks are in the wash, another bright color will do. (You should see bright yellow socks with the pink capris. Quite a sight.) A big shout-out to Maia for the green socks with butterflies on them. She found those in a box this morning, and they absolutely completed her outfit. (Note that I didn't say they complemented it!) At playgroup the other day, Rachel found a pair of Emma's socks (pink and white striped) and promptly stripped off her shoes and purple socks in anticipation of help putting on the pink ones. For the rest of the day, whenever she spied her feet, she would announce: "Eminema." She was very proud of wearing Emma's socks. Hope Emma didn't have cold feet that day!

Her opinions do not end once she has all her clothes on. We're still working on the idea of how many barrettes are enough:

And she's quite an accessorizer. Can you see what she's wearing around her neck?