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.

Eden - Seventeen Months

In the past month, Eden has started holding my hand.  This doesn't sound like a big deal, but to me it is!  In the past, I would try to hold her hand while she walked around, and one of two things would happen.  She would either just refuse and continue on her merry little way, or she would decide that she wanted me to pick her up and carry her.  All or nothing.  But just recently, while she walks around outside exploring, she will let me hold her hand.  Then, a couple of weeks ago, she was about ten feet ahead of me walking in the front yard, and she stopped and turned to me and held out her hand to me.  I seriously had no idea what she wanted.  I even turned around to see if she was gesturing to something behind me.  Finally it dawned on me that she wanted ME.  I hurried over to her and she took my hand in hers and we continued exploring the front yard together.  Her reaching out for my hand made my top five favorite Eden moments of all time.

When I took Eden in for her one year check-up, she could say four words - mama, dada, ball and Pops (she loves her Pops).  The doctor told me that by eighteen months her vocabulary would reach about fifty words, and I remember standing there getting so excited by that.  Five months later, and that doctor was right.  I have lost track of how many words she says and/or responds to.  My favorites still have to be all the animal sounds she does.  She's been doing "fly, fly, fly" when you ask her what a bird does for months now.  But now she also says "swim, swim" when you ask her fish, "ruff" when you ask her dog, "mew" when you ask her cat, and last week, my mom taught her "bawk" for chicken.  I'm pretty sure Dustin and I ask her to do these animal sounds for us at least twenty times a day.  It's just so cute.  We were asking her all the animals the other night, and I told Dustin that she was probably sitting there thinking, "Crap, I have to do the freaking chicken for them again!"

If I had to describe Eden in one word, it would be happy.  She is happy ALL THE TIME.  She smiles.  She laughs.  At everything.

And the best part?  She's mine.  And I feel like the luckiest person in the world to get to say that.  I see how many people just absolutely adore her, but at the end of the day, I am truly, truly blessed that I am her mom and I'm her favorite person and I get to tuck her into her crib at night.  It never gets old.

She played hard this morning.  She fell asleep for her nap before I even got her shoes off.

The Beach and Father's Day

Last Monday, Eden and I headed south to go visit my mom for a few days.  I had the BEST time... mainly because I could just relaxxxxx.  Monday night after I put Eden to bed, I thought to myself, "hmmm... I have no kitchen to clean, no toys to pick up, no floor to sweep..."  And I went to bed at 8:00.  Amazing.  Every morning during our visit, I went running and then leisurely rode my mom's bike around her neighborhood.  Eden laughed at my  mom's chickens, played with her dogs, splashed around in a little blow-up pool and ate her first popsicle.  Right before we got there, my mom bought twenty pounds of peaches from the farmer's market, and one evening while she played with Eden, I made peach raspberry jam.  Another evening we put Eden in her stroller and walked to the park.  Eden played on the swings and slide, and then we walked back home.  It was everything summer is supposed to be - fun and relaxing at the same time.  The highlight of course was the day we went to the beach.

Eden had NO fear of the water at all and would confidently walk straight into the ocean.  She was all big and bad until seaweed would touch her leg, and then she would freak out.

 loving it...

 loving it...

omg, seaweed!

At the age of twenty-six, I still react the same way when seaweed touches my leg.  That stuff is GROSS!

We came home Thursday afternoon, just missing Dustin who left that morning for Matagorda for a work trip.  Eden was thrilled to be home and see her own dogs again.  I know this because she kept hugging them.

Yesterday was Father's Day and for lunch, Eden and I went over to my Granny and Pops' house to eat with them and my dad and Susie.

four generations

Dustin got home that afternoon, and after baby and Daddy were reunited, we took the boat to the lake and cruised around for about an hour.

We finished off the day with fresh swordfish and shrimp that Dustin brought back.

On a completely different topic, we have some baby birds under our carport right now.

They are so, so cute, and I like to take Eden and stand up on Dustin's truck so that we can get really close to them and watch them.  The mama and daddy bird really like when we do this.  I feel a little guilty for stressing the mama bird out so much, but they're so adorable, I can't seem to stay away!

And now to go relax with Dustin... I really missed him after not seeing him for six days!

Summer, You're Killing Me

About a week and a half ago, I was walking to my car while Dustin was mowing the grass, and I got hit in the leg by a rock that the lawnmower threw.  My leg bled, swelled up and is still black and blue.  Ever since that "near-death experience" as I keep referring to it ("What if that rock had hit me in the head, Dustin?  I could be dead right now!"), nothing else has gone my way.  That was the first of many unfortunate incidents in my life lately.  A few days after my harrowing "near-death experience", I got attacked by a bird in the Babies R Us parking lot.  I was walking across the parking lot when I heard a loud squawk.  I thought to myself, "Hm, that bird sounds really close to me", and a split second later, the bird crashed into the side of my head.  (I use the word "attack" loosely.)  The bird landed at my feet, and I swear he stood there glaring at me for getting in his way.  Eden looked at the bird, then at me, and then, I kid you not, she flapped her little arms up and down and said, "fly, fly, fly."  Thank you, Eden.  Our air-conditioner was also broken for four days while we waited for a part to come in.  Then after the new part was installed, it broke again.  Three evenings ago, I was outside picking up Eden's toys, and I stepped in a hole and twisted my knee.  (I sat in the grass feeling sorry for myself until I saw a tarantula slowing making his way to me.  Then I ran like lightning.)  The next morning I rinsed off our back deck with the water hose, and when I finished, I picked Eden up and went to walk down the steps.  I of course slipped in the water and fell backwards.  I couldn't catch my fall since I was holding Eden so I just kept going, landing on my back on the steps.  I laid there for a while, stunned, with the breath knocked out of me.  I went inside to check my injuries and found another bruise already forming on my back.  Eden has also decided to go on another napping strike during all of this, but after falling down my deck steps, I did manage to actually get her to fall asleep.  I had JUST laid her down and was planning to lay my injured body on a bag of frozen peas.  My knee and back were aching, and I was pretty tired since my day had started at 5 a.m. when Drake got sick all over the living room (and I don't mean the good sick where he threw up).  But Dustin called to inform me that the air-conditioner repair man was fixing to be at the house for the third (and hopefully final) time.  He pulled up the driveway a few minutes later, the dogs went crazy over the strange vehicle, and Eden woke up and decided that her ten minute power nap was sufficient for the day.  I won't mention every other thing that has happened to me lately, but trust me, it's a lot.  Instead of asking me how my day was when he gets home from work now, Dustin asks me what mishaps I've had that day.

Despite my misfortunes as of late, summer is in full swing and we're enjoying it.  So far, Eden took her very first boat ride:

played in the sprinkler for the first time:

(I sat down in the grass to take these sprinkler pictures... right into an ant bed.  My entire right leg is covered in ant bites.)

and has gone swimming a few times:

Dustin and I also celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary on the thirty-first of May.

In what has become my life lately, we arrived at the restaurant we chose that evening to find that it had shut down.  We went to another restaurant where I ordered prime rib, only to be told that they were out.  "Of course you are", I replied.  The night turned out very nice though.  I gave Dustin a bottle of wine on our wedding day, and he's been saving it for five years.  That night after we put Eden to bed, we sat outside under the stars and drank the wine.  The bottle now sits on the shelf next to the bottle of wine we drank the night we got engaged, the bottle of champagne we drank at our wedding and the bottle of pink champagne we drank the day Eden was born.

Okay, I'm off to soak in the bathtub and drink a beer now.  I freaking need it.