Rachel's new skills

When I was in the library at church, Rachel had pulled herself up against the wall and was kind of walking along it.

Matt Parks poked his head in and said,

"Walking already! She learns things so quickly. I always have time to adapt to each of Amy's skills...but I don't think you do."

This is true. Rachel tries to learn something new everyday. Out with the old, in with the new. That's her motto. Clapping seems so long ago, but she only started that on Wednesday.

In the last few days...

...Rachel has been experimenting with the phonemes [f] and [v].

...She has taken to waving bye-bye. It's kind of been her trademark move--she liked to do it while holding onto a wet cloth and then dry cloths and then can lids and eventually started doing it while holding nothing at all. Although she's been doing this gesture for a while she's realized now that when she looks at someone and smiles while doing it that they go crazy over her. I think she's also realized that she can end a conversation by tricking people into thinking that she's saying goodbye.

The movies aren't quite as cute as when she initiates the wave...but they are cute, nonetheless.

...Nothing is safe anymore. Rachel has learned that she can reach things kept well above her head. Today she pulled the Ensign down right on top of her head. She's lucky it wasn't anything heavier. I suppose one of the benefits of this is that no surfaces within her reach stand a chance of collecting dust, although they do collect a lot more fingerprints than they used to.


...Perhaps her most embarrassing skill, for us, is making squeaky noises with her hands. She first discovered that while she was sitting on the potty she could drag her hand across it and it would squeak. Then she tried it in the tub. Then on the wood floor. And finally on the metal chairs at church. Squeak, squeak, squeak!

She learns so many new things everyday that I can hardly keep up with her! I'm exhausted by the end of everyday!