Eden - Twenty Months

She wanted to stand up this month.

So Eden is twenty months old... And I still have moments where I look at her and think to myself, "Holy crap, I have a kid!"  I love it; I hope the wonder of her never wears off.

 She's smelling her flower in the picture on the left, and in the picture on the right she was so excited to see her daddy through the window.



Her current obsession is stickers.  Stickers on EVERYTHING. 

 

She decorates anything and everything.  Yesterday morning before volleyball practice she put stickers on the volleyballs.  I go around most days with stickers on my face.  Most of her toys have them.  The water trough has them.  Any sticker will do.  Today she proudly rode around the grocery store with a sticker from a cantaloupe on her shirt.

Her current favorite phrase is "gone gone".  She likes to take our stuff, and then when we ask for it, she tells us "gone gone".  She hides stuff just so she can say "gone gone". 

She has such a wonder for the world at this age.  I love it; I hope it never wears off.

Summer Ain't Over Yet!

As soon as September hit, I'm pretty sure everyone I know started acting like it's fall.  Um... it's ninety-five degrees outside.  It is most definitely NOT fall.  Now, don't get me wrong... I love fall as much as the next person, and when the temperature drops, I'll be all excited over sweaters and pumpkins too.  But right now, I'm still enjoying summer.  On Saturday, the three of us made a day trip to Matagorda.  We had the beach almost to ourselves since everyone else was out buying pumpkins or something.

 

 Eden kept trying to fill her bucket up with water.

But it had a hole in the bottom.

She would proudly bring us the bucket to show us her water, see that the bucket was empty and look so confused.  "Gone gone", she'd tell us and go back to try again.  We let her do it a few times just because it was so cute, but then Daddy to the rescue!

Triumph at last!

The weather was gloriously overcast.  I think I prefer the beach that way.  Dustin and I sat back and watched the storm clouds roll in.  After about two hours, it finally started to rain, so we packed up and went and ate seafood.  On the way home we were treated to a beautiful double rainbow.

The picture (taken on my phone) does not do it justice at all.  I had never seen a rainbow as vibrant as the one on the right.  The red, orange and yellow part of it looked like the sky was on fire.  It was breathtaking.

Yesterday, Eden started Sunday school.

I swear I won't take pictures every Sunday, but I had to on her very first day!  The activity for her class was making a lamb out of cotton bolls.  She concentrated so hard, and I was really impressed with her!

After Sunday school, we stopped by my Granny and Pops' house because Pops is HOME!  Granny opened the door and Eden RAN into her arms!  She was so excited to see them back at their house!  She wrapped her arms around Granny's neck and kept kissing her cheek.  Then Granny walked over to Pops, and Eden leaned over and wrapped her arms around his neck too.  "That's the best thing," Pops said.

First Texans game of the regular season tonight!  And I have the cutest Texans fan EVER!

And one more picture...

Random Stuff

Random Stuff #1:

With the start of the school year, our routine changed as I was asked to help coach junior high volleyball at the school where I used to teach.  Volleyball practice is every morning from seven to nine, and I agreed to come in two days a week to help.  The school is nice enough to let me bring Eden, so from seven to eight, my friend and former teaching partner, Stacy, watches Eden in her classroom.  When school starts at eight, Eden goes over to the preschool until I pick her up at nine.  A woman known to all who love her as "Momo" volunteers at the preschool on Tuesdays and Fridays so those are the days that I help out with volleyball, and Momo watches Eden for that hour.  She told me that they have put Eden in with the two year olds a few times just to see how she is with them, but mostly Momo spoils Eden rotten and takes her to the playroom and gives her her undivided attention.  Eden has a giant room full of toys all to herself.  Every single time I've gone to pick her up, she is covered in necklaces and bracelets.  Momo says she loves to sit at the play vanity table and put on all the toy jewelry, play with the play makeup and pretend to blow dry her hair with the toy hair dryer.  That girly side is coming out in full-force!  She is also a big fan of the pretend kitchen, so I'm thinking that between Christmas and her birthday in a few months, Little Miss Eden will be getting a kitchen and vanity table.  I love that Momo is so devoted to her and that Eden has so much fun, but I do wish she would have more time to interact with the other kids because...

Random Stuff #2:

My child is really bad at sharing.  Like REALLY BAD.  On Thursday we went to the Children's Museum.  And yes, she's still wild.  She also thinks that if she wants a toy, she can have that toy... even if another child is already playing with it.  She walked up to so many kids and just took toys away from them.  That I can handle though.  She hasn't had many instances where she has had to share so I know she doesn't know any better.  Every time it happened,  I took the toy away from her, told her "no", gave it back to the original kid and did my best to explain to her that somebody else had it first.  By the end of our time there, she was starting to get it.  HOWEVER, sometimes another kid would come up to Eden and take a toy away from her.  My little independent girl would just take matters into her own hands, take the toy back, HIT THE KID AND TELL THEM "BAD!".  Ahhhhhh!  I had to apologize to so many moms!  "I'm so sorry she just hit your child!  We're still learning how to share."

 

Random Stuff #3:

 

I have park pictures!  In the last two weeks, Eden has become so independent at the park.  Gone are the days when I had to follow her around and hold her hand and help her.  Now when we get to the park, she's gone!  She, fortunately, hasn't tried to run down any slides in a while.

 

She even climbs all the way up to the top of the tall curvy slide and slides down all by herself.  I catch her at the bottom, and then she runs back to the steps to do it again.

 

Random Stuff #4:

 

My Pops is in the hospital.  He scared us all for a few days and had to spend a week in the ICU, but he's out of the ICU now so Eden is able to go with me to visit him.

 

I know she misses her Granny and her Pops while they're gone.  We all still seem to congregate at their house even though they're not there, and over the weekend I stopped by their house looking for Eden's cousin Rylen (so that they could play, and she could work on sharing).  Eden just looked at Pops' empty chair for a while and then walked around the house searching for her Granny.  It broke my heart.  But Pops is doing good now, and I pray that they will be home soon, and we can go back to spending lots of afternoons with them.

 

Random Stuff #5:

 

Every night Eden sleeps with her Lovey (who Dustin refers to as Cat Towel), Sheepie (a stuffed sheep that my mom brought her from Ireland - I'm so original with names) and Rosie (a little mouse that used to be mine).  The other night I put her into her crib like usual and then went downstairs.  After a few minutes, Eden started yelling and crying.  I went back to her room, and she was standing in her crib.  She held Lovey out to me and motioned that she wanted me to kiss her.  After I kissed Lovey, she held out Sheepie for me to kiss followed by Rosie.  After I had kissed all three of them, she was fine and laid down to go to sleep.  Now every night I have to kiss her stuffed animals.  She stalls so that she can put off going to sleep as long as possible, and I have to kiss them all about ten times each.  Just when I think we're done and I start heading for the door, she decides they need more kisses.  It's so adorable, and it makes her so happy.

 

My mom was here two weekends ago and watched Eden all day that Sunday while Dustin and I went to the Texans game.  She later told me how special it was for her to get to do Eden's little nighttime routine with her and put her in her crib.  Her telling me that made me realize how much I take doing that for granted.  Not that I ever mind doing it, but lately I've been reminding myself just how special it really is getting to read to her and sing to her and kiss her goodnight.

 

End of Random Stuff