Wild Child

Eden isn't around other babies her age very often, so I don't really know how she's developing compared to them.  Is she ahead?  Behind?  Who knows, I don't really care.  She's happy - good enough for me.  Last week I took her to the Children's Museum for the first time in a few months, and she was able to play with some other babies her age.  This is what I learned about my child: SHE IS WILD!

I came home and informed Dustin that we had the wildest child in the room.  Other babies would play with a toy, get bored of it, walk around, find a new toy, sit and play with that toy.  Eden ran around in circles.  Other babies sat happily in the ball pit.  Eden screamed, "BALL!" and threw balls EVERYWHERE.  Other babies climbed up the ramp to the slide, walked across and then slid down the slide.  Eden climbed up the ramp to the slide and then threw herself back down the ramp head first.  SCARED ME TO DEATH the first time she did that because I was NOT expecting it.  I was waiting at the bottom of the slide.  Silly me.  She decided that was SO MUCH FUN and climbed up the ramp and threw herself down it head first at least five more times.

I was insanely proud.  "She's spirited", I told Dustin.  That's what I prefer to call it.  But still, I was a little worried about it.  I wondered if maybe I should attempt to contain her a bit... because I don't... hardly ever.  I don't need to.  We live on twelve acres of land, we spend the majority of our day outside, and when we're outside, I just let Eden go.  Sometimes she sticks close to the house and plays on her trampoline or slide.  Sometimes she takes off after the dogs and goes exploring, and I just follow along and let her do her thing.

After seeing her compared to the other babies though, I thought that maybe I shouldn't let her just "go" anymore, that maybe I should be working with her to be calmer, that maybe we should stay inside more where dogs aren't our role models (she likes to crawl around and "ruff" and sometimes she eats like a dog and once I even caught her lapping up some water with her tongue).  I thought about it for a few days and decided... nope, you're only little and free once.  Chase the dogs.  Explore the land.  Scream your head off.

Because another thing I noticed... not only was she more "spirited" than the other babies... she was the happiest of the bunch.

Be free, my child.

See that blue rocking dog up there?  While we were at the museum, Eden saw a little girl, probably around three, rocking on one of those.  Eden got the biggest smile on her face, walked over, and sat down on the rocking dog right next to the girl and grinned at her.  The little girl immediately got up, picked up her little dog, walked to the other side of the play area and sat back down to rock.  This is CRAZY, I KNOW that, but I was so mad.  I wanted to yell at that little girl, "How dare you not want to play with her!"  I wanted to yell at her mom, "Did you see that?  Make your little brat rock next to my daughter!"  Eden, at the age of seventeen months, of course had no idea what happened and happily continued to rock on her toy.  I sat there giving that little three year old the evil eye.  I know this sounds insane.  And I really don't want to be THAT mom (you know - the PSYCHO one), but I could not help but be upset for Eden's little clueless sake.  On the way home, all I could think was that one day Eden WILL understand if somebody doesn't want to play with her and one day she WILL get her feelings hurt, and it will crush my heart.  I guess that's just another part of being a mom.  Ugh.

Between Eden running wild and me glaring at three year olds, I'm sure the people at The Tot Spot can't wait for us to come back!

In other news, Dustin and I bought Eden a water trough to play in all summer.  Eden loves it if you can't figure that out by her beaming face.