"I helping!"

Boy, did she ever. Rachel was a fantastic help to me today, filled as it was with activity:

This morning our friend Paige came over with her 3-year-old, Parker, who had an "accident" and peed on the living room carpet. I tried mightily to hide my distress and sponged off as much as I could; I hope the stain doesn't set. Drew and I got the carpet on a trip to Canada during my fellowship and it has a lot of sentimental value.

Then after the kids made a mess of the upstairs and downstairs, we went into the kitchen for some chocolate-chip banana bread I took out from the oven, so it was still warm. The kids enjoyed themselves and Parker fussed quite a bit when it was time to go (this was after Rachel got sad when he arrived, coming up to me and saying, "I wanna play with Parker but he said nooo." It was quite charming).

Then I decided to put a pot roast and fixings into the crock pot, and of course Rachel wanted to help. She dragged her kitchen chair over to the counter and promptly took and onion and peeled it! Then after my eyes started stinging unbearably from the onion fumes, I directed her to put the onions in the crock pot -- and she did! We worked ourselves into a little routine: I cut the carrots up and she dumped them into the crock pot, I cut the celery up and she put the pieces in, too, and then the potatoes, and then a package of herbs. She very carefully placed the herbs on top of the meat and around it, and then said, "I helping!" I got down to her level, looked her in the eye and said, "THANK YOU, Rachel! You were a big help to Mommy!"

Then I told her I needed to sweep the floor and asked her to get the duster and dustpan from out of the closet. I swept the crumbs into a pile and she actually swept them into the dustpan instead of randomly scattering them about. I was so proud of her! I held open the garbage can and she just dumped the crumbs right in.

Then we went upstairs and built houses from blocks. Rachel sternly told me that the plain wooden blocks were MINE and the colored ones were HERS, but then she took a couple from my pile after I assembled a house I was pretty proud of. It ended with her knocking over my house.

We went to the library, checked out some books and music, came home and took naps (for some reason I am really tired this weekend. No idea why). Then I made us dinner -- shells and the rest of the beef stroganoff I made when Drew was home for me; and two jars of apple butternut squash for Rachel. Then books, bath, sleepsuit, songs, cuddling, bed.

Back to the grind tomorrow.