Rachel's personality

..is apparently funny and playful, and she's quite a ham, according to her teachers at daycare, when I asked tonight how they'd describe her personality.

"She's a happy, happy little girl," said Lianna, who used to work in the toddler room but is now with the babies.

It's true. Rachel has taken to laughing out loud -- really howling laugher -- sometimes for no reason at all. And she's funny! Tonight when I heard her make a little sound when I was reading to her, I asked, "What's that, Rachel?"

"A burp," she said, so matter-of-factly that I cracked up. She's obviously too young to be embarrassed or say "excuse me!"

I put her in a new pair of shoes today (actually, I got them from a consignment store for about $7). I suspect they're boy shoes, but they have Velcro straps and are different shades of blue. She took to them immediately.

"You like my shoes, don't you?" she asked me on the way home tonight.
"Yes, Rachel, I LOVE your shoes!" I replied.

We only had two bad comuting moments tonight. It was rainy and slightly scary driving home in the dark, trying to get Rachel food while listening to a CD she insisted that Mommy put into the CD player. She asked for the mountain song, then the bus song, and I had to tell her I had no idea what she was talking about.

"Bus song! Bus song!" she insisted. (She knows to ask for "Wheels on the bus," which I know by heart, but that's the only bus song we know so it sounded as if she wanted a different one).

I had put on a CD by Big Bad Voodoo Daddy at that point and snarled at Rachel, "this IS the bus song!" out of total frustration. She started really crying, and apologized and rubbed her leg.

Later, after she calmed down and announced, "I'm happy again," she followed that up with, "don't scream at me, Mommy."

I silently vowed not to if I could at all help it.