20 months!

Rachel turned 20 months Thursday! Can 2 years old be far away??
She is:

--developing quite the vocabulary. Let's see if I can list all the words she says, some of which are more clear than others -- go, help, purple, ball, cup, hat, shoes, socks, mommy, daddy, please, no, challah (cha-cha), water (wa-WA-dee), yay, wow, hi, bye-bye, uh-oh, car, bus, baby, toddle... You get the idea.

--exhibiting a will of her own, especially at bedtime. She usually has so much fun reading books (or else she just wants to stay up late:)) that she starts crying when I announce it's time for her bath. She usually calms down pretty quickly, though.

--more comfortable with the toothbrush. Now she actually wants to do it herself -- and has a fun time in the process!

--very aware when one of us is gone. So, if she's with Drew, she'll say, "Mommy! Mommy!" a lot. When it's just me, she'll point at the photos on the bookshelf in her bedroom and say, "Daddy! Daddy!"

--really, really, really into books. She'd have us read to her morning, noon and night if she could get away with it. We are delighted and hope it sticks.

--getting more independent. She usually finishes dinner before we (or I) do, and so she hops out of her booster seat (with our help) and runs into the living room to play. She seems to be getting used to the idea that we need to finish dinner before we can join her, so she either occupies herself there or toddles back to the kitchen table with...a book, and plunks herself down on the floor to read.

--discovering new stuff at the park all the time. Drew was with her last weekend and said she tried to climb the LADDER. She managed it with a lot of help from Daddy!

--giving kisses, unbidden. We call them Rachel kisses because they involve putting her lips on ours. She makes sure that if she kisses one of us, she then kisses the other. And two nights ago, she kissed Spot! I heard a smacking sound, so maybe she has mastered it...

--getting large hands. Sometimes she drums them idly on her leg or on the table, and I think with a pang that she's acquiring grown-habits.

--very into cars. She likes a green Matchbox car and a yellow and green plastic car. She likes the sensation of having us run the cars up and down her tummy and back.

--doing more big-kid stuff at daycare: playing with toy dishes, sitting in a pop-up tent, watching the big kids dance.

--trying more adult things, such as marching over to the car after daycare is over, demanding the keys, trying to open the door all by herself and, THEN, climbing into the passenger side of the car!

--getting more and more hair down the back of her neck, but it's still sparse up front. Wonder when I'll be able to tie it into ponytails?

--running! But she's careful not to go too fast or go out of Mommy's sight just yet.

--bothered by open doors and drawers (oh, she's my kid all right). She'll say "uh-oh" if she notices something is open and will immediately move to close it.

--able to pick out her own clothes. The matching part comes later...

--quite popular at daycare, all the little kids line up to say "hi!" to her when she arrives, hand in Mommy's hand. Then one of the attendants scoops her up and she forgets about us.

--a whiz with stairs. Walks up and down them, holding onto the handrail, as if she's been doing so all her life.

--developing manners. Or, at least, the ability to say "more, please!" We are working on getting her to say "no thank you," because "no," however cute and decisive it sounds, is just plain rude when said all alone.

--a gift in this time of anxiety. It's hard to believe she won't remember how worried we were.