Another Mommy and Rachel adventure

Drew left for work very early this morning, and we got to bed late last night because I was proofing pages for the magazine. Rachel, of course, chose this morning to knock on my door at 7 AM and announce that she wanted to show me a picture she'd drawn. "Rachel, it is TOO EARLY for you to be up," I snapped, and promptly felt bad after she left the room, sniffling. I told her to come back, admired the drawing and invited her to cuddle in bed with me. Which she had the patience to do for about 15 minutes, then asked politely if she could go play. YES, I told her, and I ended up falling back asleep until 8:58, whereupon I heard her little voice saying, "time to get up, Mommy!" By that time, I was in a much better mood.

After a leisurely breakfast and some straightening out of the house, we went to OMSI (Oregon's science museum, Rachel's idea; they were only charging $2 per person today). Before we got there we made a detour to the mall where I bought some more makeup. The saleswoman, quite young, was clearly impressed by Rachel's behavior; Rachel kept saying, "you look beautiful, Mommy!" and then, after I'd tried on another shade of foundation, "you look even MORE beautiful, Mommy!" and then kissed my arm several times. I thanked her for her patience and the saleswoman rewarded Rachel with a fabric ring with a big purple flower on it. Of course Rachel thanked her politely. Then we stopped by a movie store where I found another My Little Pony movie (of the same approximate vintage as the one she has now; the newer ones are kind of creepy with bug-eyed ponies) and the sales guy commented on how adorable and well-behaved Rachel was. We got into a discussion about kids and I said I highly recommended them but that we really got lucky with our daughter.

Then it was on to OMSI and we had a BLAST. (I had originally thought of bringing some of my marketing homework in case Rachel went off to play somewhere, but forgot my backpack with my books at home and I ended up not needed it anyway). OMSI (Oregon Museum of Science and Industry) has a huge Lego exhibit and Rachel and I spent about 20 minutes building houses (hers was a castle; mine was an extra room with windows) while I had a very nice conversation with a 9-year-old boy next to us. He said he liked dragons.

"Rachel likes unicorns," I said.
"In fact, I bought a unicorn movie today," she informed him. I was totally stunned at her grownup vocabulary, but the little boy didn't say anything.

Then we went to a fantastic playground they have on the 2nd floor of the museum with a sandlot, a cut-out "tree" where you can burrow inside and pretend you're a squirrel, and a station with balls and an air machine that keeps them afloat and sends them through tubes and up into the sky...and only because I wanted her to nap did I insist on leaving at 4. "I want a NAP!" she wailed as we raced through the parking lot in the driving rain, and so I got her home and into her bed after snack. We will be joining Sarah and Noah for dinner at a kid-friendly restaurant in a half hour.