* Little House in the Country: Eden - Sixteen Months and Our Weekend in Dallas

As I mentioned in my last post, we definitely have hard moments and days around here. But we also have good moments and days. Like when she kisses me and cuddles with me and we read books together and go on wagon rides. And the good days make the bad days worth it. The good days actually make me forget that the bad days exist until we have another one, and I'm like, "oh yeahhh....".

Thirteen and fourteen months were the really, really hard ones for me, but I think we're gradually working our way back up hill. It definitely helps that my Baby Girl is SLEEPING THROUGH THE NIGHT almost every single night now. I'm sure a lot of my frustration a few months ago came because she wasn't sleeping at night, she wasn't napping during the day, but she was tired, which made her cranky, which made me cranky. But now... she puts herself to sleep at night and sleeps all night AND takes about an hour and a half nap every afternoon. She's been doing all of this for a few weeks now, and I still can't believe it. I didn't think this day would ever come! I stopped sleeping somewhere around the second trimester of my pregnancy so these past weeks have been the first time in over a year and a half that I've gotten to sleep for longer than four hours at a time! I forgot what it was like to actually get to sleep! Thank you, Eden! Thank you, Eden! Thank you, Eden!

Also, Eden is now old enough that I can get all the chores done around the house with her "helping me" whereas before I had to try and get everything done during her ten minute naps (um, impossible) or while holding her because she wanted me to hold her pretty much all day long (not impossible, but very difficult). Now in the mornings, I tell her to put out the dog bowls, and she runs and gets them and sets them out and takes handfuls of dog food out of the bag and puts it in the bowls for the dogs. She sits on the dryer and throws the dirty clothes from the basket into the washing machine and she stands in front of the dryer and puts the wet clothes into it when I hand them to her from the washing machine. Oh, and she loves, loves, LOVES to throw away trash so any time I have something that needs to be thrown away, I hand it to her, say "trash", and she runs and puts it in the trashcan. I think throwing away trash is her favorite hobby, and about one thousand times a day she picks up a crumb or a piece of fuzz or SOMETIMES she just PRETENDS that she has picked something up, and she shouts, "YUCK!" (she also shouts "YUCK!" anytime she sees a diaper), and I ask her if she wants to throw it away and off she goes to the trashcan. After she throws something away, she always claps for herself too. At the park a few weekends ago, Eden decided to take it upon herself to clean up and started throwing away acorns and leaves.

I'm pretttyyyy sure that she won't always think feeding the dogs and doing the laundry and throwing away trash will be super fun, so you can bet that I'm taking advantage of it right now!

Eden is continuing to learn more and more words which obviously makes life easier because I don't have to play as many guessing games with her. Her big ones are: she knows pretty much all the (main) animals, she can point to her body parts when you tell her to (belly button being the cutest, of course), and she can let me know when she wants ice (she loves eating ice) or wants to swing or wants to read a book. She's starting to understand me too so she runs to the bathtub when I say it's time to take a bath, and she runs to the back door when I ask her if she wants to go outside.

And I think the very best thing in the entire world is when I go get her from her crib after Dustin goes to work in the mornings and put her into bed with me, and she snuggles up to me while she sleeps.

So see? She's good too! She's so, so good.

*****

This past weekend my brother graduated from SMU, my friend, Kate, who lives in (by) Dallas, had a birthday and Dustin had to do some work stuff in Dallas. It was pretty perfect that all these things were happening at the same time, so on Friday morning we headed up north. As soon as we got to Dallas, Dustin got picked up from the hotel to go to some work thing, so Eden and I had the day to ourselves. We hung out at the hotel pool for the majority of the day. It was Eden's first time this year to go swimming. She loved the pool last year, but I was wondering if after the winter she might be afraid of the water at first. NOPE! She would run and jump off the side into my arms. Actually this is what she would try to do after seeing another kid doing it, but in Eden's case she would just walk really, really fast until she ran out of ground and just kinda fell into the pool.

That evening when we got back to the room, I put Eden to bed and then took a shower in the big fancy shower, wrapped up in the big fancy robe and ordered a steak and cookies and milk from room service. I was a happy, happy girl. I LOVE hotels. I seriously want to LIVE in a hotel Elouise-style!

The next morning we went to Marshall's graduation, and it was HOT! By the end of it, Eden's cheeks were bright red and her hair was matted to her head with sweat. But I'm so glad we went.

Then we headed to Kate's house, and that evening we went out to dinner for her birthday.

The next day, Sunday, Dustin had to go meet up with some more customers for work, so Kate and I took Eden to the Fort Worth Zoo. We love Kate. We love Kate so much. Because even though we were there for HER birthday, when we walked in her door on Saturday, she had a pile of new clothes waiting for Eden, and when we went to the zoo, she insisted on buying our way in. She's pretty awesome like that.

I took Eden to the zoo for the first time back in March, and it's amazing how much of a difference two months makes! She had fun the first time, but she had a BLAST this time! She got to feed some birds (she said "fly, fly, fly" a lot during this experience) and boy, oh boy did she love the white tigers. There was a white tiger walking the length of a window that I put Eden on. It was just walking back and forth and back and forth, and every time it came by Eden she would shriek in delight. It was so funny to watch.