Eden - Ten Months (and one day)

We had to take Eden's 10 month picture today because I wasn't with her yesterday. (tear)  Dustin and I went with some friends to the Texans game (yay!), but I have to say that when Dustin came home a few weeks ago and told me that the game was on November 18th, the very first thing that popped into my head was that I wouldn't be with Eden on one of her little monthly birthdays.  My mom came and spent the day with her instead.  Dustin and I left yesterday morning at 8 and we didn't get home until 7:30 last night.  That is the longest amount of time I have ever spent away from Eden.  I had a great time at the game, but by the time we were on the way home, I was a complete wreck.  I've still only been away from her a handful of times. 

Eden... 10 months...

Well her days of army crawling are long gone.  She's a crawler crawler now.  And I can't help but be a teensy bit sad that my army crawler is gone.  She was SO cute dragging herself around, and I can't believe I'll never see it again! 

Her hair is growing back in slowly but surely.  (She was born with hair and then poof - it all disappeared!)  It's SO CUTE!  There's not much hair, but when I push her in the swing, that inch of hair flies out in the wind, and when she wakes up in the mornings her little hair is sticking straight up.  It cracks me up.

She still pulls up on EVERYTHING, but at least this month she falls down less.

She still has yet to start sleeping through the night.  She's doing better.  But as we get closer and closer to that year mark, I can't help but be a little glad that she's still not sleeping through the night.  When she was first born, those moments when I was feeding her in the middle of the night were my absolute favorite.  The whole world was sleeping except me and her in a dark room cuddled up together.  There's nothing sweeter.  I'm glad that we still have those moments.  It will be really nice when I don't have to get up a few times a night anymore, but I know when that time finally comes, I'll be sad too.

She loves her animals.  I'm not sure how much they love her though.  The dogs get crawled over and hit in the face, and the cats never get to eat in peace anymore.

One thing I DON'T love about this age... the fact that she has to put EVERY LITTLE THING in her mouth!  I have to sweep my floors CONSTANTLY.  I have to be on alert for choking CONSTANTLY.  We'll be having a lovely little afternoon playing on the quilt outside... I take my eyes off of her for three seconds and all of a sudden she's choking on a leaf.  If I had a dollar for every time I've had to stick my finger down her throat to fish something out, I would be a very rich woman. 

As her birthday gets closer and closer, my heart can't help but ache.  But I had a friend tell me just last week, that from here on out, I'll think that Eden can't get any better, any more fun, but then the next day I'll find out I was wrong.  She assured me that it just keeps getting better. 

Is she not the cutest?

Happy Halloween!

Enjoying October

"I'm so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers." - L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables

There is something amazing about October.  It seems almost magical.  It offers so much.  And I've tried to soak up every ounce of it.

We enjoyed cool days...

fall sweaters, fall sweaters!  I LOVE fall sweaters and bought Eden like a billion of them!

 

...and warm days.

We spent almost every single afternoon outside on the quilt this month.  We soaked up the sunshine, Eden had so much fun watching the dogs play, and she ate many, many blades of grass that she managed to stuff into her mouth before I could stop her.

We visited the pumpkin patch.

We decorated pumpkins...

... and carved pumpkins.

We never actually got to light Eden's little jack o' lantern though.  A dog snatched it off the table, and it was never seen again. :(

My favorite part of the month though would, of course, be the fair.  I LOVE the fair.  I look forward to it all year, and I get almost as excited about it as I do for Christmas.  Even though she wasn't capable of much this year, I still couldn't wait to take Eden and let her see all the sights.  Dustin even took off work the Thursday of the fair, and we took Eden to the parade (she stared with her mouth open the entire time) and pushed her around the fairgrounds in her stroller.  We walked around eating curly fries and drinking beer, and I know that doesn't sound like much, but it is.  It was a great day.  Eden was a big fan of the Junior Barnyard.

All that's left for this month is Halloween.  We're taking Eden trick or treating so that she can get us some free candy.  ;)

Eden - Nine Months

I remember the first few months that I took these pictures.  Eden would just lie there perfectly content, and I could leisurely take twenty pictures and go through them later to choose my favorite.  HA!  I actually broke a sweat trying to get a good picture this month.  It was practically a wrestling match.  Most of the pictures were of her back, and after I finally managed one of her front, I said, "Good enough!"  Well, I did get one other one of her face... I had given her a toy to play with so that she would stay on her back, and then I thought I could just snatch it away really fast and snap a picture.  Dumb.  This is what I got:

"Mama, why you take my toy?"

When I was pregnant, nine months was FOREVER!  I thought it would never pass!  Then Eden was born, and I blinked, and she turned nine months.  So unfair!

Eden is finally starting to crawl up on her hands and knees.  I was really wondering if she ever would or if she would just go from army crawling to walking.  She still army crawls most of the time though, and even when she crawls for real, for real, when she decides she wants to go fast, she drops down to her little belly to army crawl again.  It's the cutest little thing.

Naturally at nine months, she is into EVERYTHING and pulling up on EVERYTHING.  She always wants to be standing.  And then she forgets that she can't stand on her own and lets go and falls, and she is covered in bruises.  I know this happens to all babies, but I still can't help being a little embarrassed when we go places and she has bruises all over her forehead... like someone is going to call me out for being a bad mom or something!

She says "mama" and "dada", but she says "mama" more which makes my heart sing. =)  She loves her daddy though and gets really excited when he comes home from work.  I hold her when he comes through the door, and she kicks, kicks, kicks those little legs until he takes her and she can snuggle against him.

She's a mama's baby through and through though, and separation anxiety has kicked in full force.  If I am not in her line of sight, it is not good!  But I love it!  I don't know why there are moms out there that complain about that stage... As far as I'm concerned, there is no greater feeling in the world than your baby wanting you and ONLY you.

And this blog post is going to be cut off abruptly now because Eden is stirring from her nap, and I need to get dressed to go out to dinner later before she is completely awake and ready to go!  Adios!  =)



Fall is Here!

I was a very happy girl when I woke up this morning.  October 1st.  I love this time of year, and October 1st brought with it a cool, crisp morning that felt - well, just like October should feel.  There are so many things to look forward to this time of year, but I think my favorite is just the overall mood.  I LOVE summer... but summers are busy... they always seem to be jam-packed with millions of things to do, and I always seem to be going, going, going during summer.  But then comes fall, and it's for relaxing.  Lazy Sundays watching football.  Relaxing evenings outside now that you won't sweat to death.  Watching movies all cuddled up in blankets and falling asleep at 8:00 because it's already been dark for hours.  I always feel so rested and relaxed and at ease during this time of year. 

Eden wore her fleece pajamas last night, I'm fixing her fall foods (for dinner she had butternut squash and apple oatmeal sprinkled with cinnamon), and I'm all excited to change out the quilt on our bed for the big down comforter.  When we were growing up, my mom always put flannel sheets on our beds this time of year, and I remember always being SO excited that it was time for the flannel sheets.  Almost as excited as I was when spring came back and we got our regular sheets again.  (That's the thing... as excited as I am right now, I know that six months from now, I'll be just as excited for spring and hot weather and all the things it brings.)  But for now... let's focus on fall.  I can't wait to carve pumpkins and eat chili and apple cake and get ready for bed at like 5:00 and snuggle, snuggle, snuggle on the couch and watch all of my many TV shows now that they're back.  I'm so excited to wear sweaters and boots and enjoy crisp mornings, and there would SO be flannel sheets on my bed right now if it weren't for Dustin and the fact that he would have a heat stroke.

Eden got to wear a little jacket today.

We are still struggling with sleep over here.  It is what it is though.  I've stopped fighting it... Eden is a bad sleeper.  It's a fact.  I can't complain too much; she gets this trait from me (I STILL don't sleep), and even though my mom sounds sympathetic when we talk about it, I'm sure she's laughing in her head and thinking it's payback time!  I've read articles and books, I'm doing everything I'm supposed to do.  And sometimes we have GREAT nights (last week Eden slept for 11 hours one night... cue Angels singing), sometimes we have okay nights, and sometimes we have BADDDD nights, waking up every couple of hours and flat out refusing to go back to sleep.  I just go with it.  There's nothing else I can do. 

I see friends of mine without babies post articles like "How To Get Your Baby To Sleep Through The Night By Six Weeks Old" and "Seven Nights to A Better Sleeper" to their "Future Babies" pinterest boards, and I just laugh.  I clicked on the "Seven Nights to A Better Sleeper", and one of the steps seriously said to put a fresh diaper on your baby right before bedtime.  Oh REALLLYYYY?!!!  Because I've been putting Eden to bed every night in a dirty diaper.  So all I have to do is put a fresh diaper on her and she'll sleep all night?  After reading the entire article, I came to the conclusion that the writer had never had children.  Just like I'm convinced that the person who coined the phrase, "sleep like a baby" never had a baby.  It amuses me to watch my friends "pin" these articles for later... only because I remember being pregnant and armed with a swaddle blanket, lavender scented bedtime lotion (proven to help your baby sleep better!) and a Sleep Sheep that plays white noise thinking to myself, "Wow, my baby is going to be such a good sleeper because all I have to do is put this lotion on her, wrap her in this blanket and then turn on her Sleep Sheep."  If only!  But it's okay... because it's amazing what I am capable of with so little sleep.  No, I take that back... It's amazing what EDEN is capable of with so little sleep.  I'm always astonished to see how hyper she can be in the mornings after such a bad night. 

Okay, okay, so other than the sleep thing, she really is just so perfect.  And I would deal with horrible nights every night if I had to, because it would be so worth it.  Because our days are magical.  Playing, laughing, smiling, swinging, riding in the wagon... It's everything I ever thought it would be and so much more. 

I love this picture.  She sat in that swing so content and watched Dustin mow the entire yard.  He would wave when he would go by, and she would just grin.

We go outside to swing no less than five times every day.  She LOVES it.  She loves to go high.  Like HIGH.  REALLY HIGH.  RIDICULOUSLY HIGH.  She's going to have my love of rollercoasters, I just know it!

She gets so excited for bathtime, and I'm so relieved because for the first few months of her life, she HATED it and would cry the entire time.  But I think it's partly my fault because I was really bad at it, and never quite knew what I was doing.  Sorry Eden.  The water coming out of the faucet is the best part - way better than all those stupid bath toys that I wasted my money on!

Momsicles!  Heard of 'em?  Genius!  Found on pinterest of course.  Frozen breastmilk for teething babies.  So simple.

Happy Fall y'all!

Eden - Eight Months

It was so hard to get a picture this month!  Most of them came out looking like this:

Baby Girl just did not have time to squeeze a picture-taking session into her busy schedule of exploring rooms, chewing on stuff and chasing the cat.  Finally, I started singing, and that managed to catch her attention long enough for me to get one!

A few months ago, I was holding her and singing to her, and she stuck out her little hand and put it over my mouth.  I'm not sure if it was an act of love or if even at six months old she knows that Momma does not have a good singing voice, and she wanted to shut me up.

Eden is still army crawling.  She has yet to crawl crawl.  But boy is she quick.  (As you can tell from the first picture.)  She is pulling up now though which is super cute and also scares me to death!  She was hanging out in the freezer the other day (it entertains her and occupies her while I cook), and she pulled something off of one of the shelves.  She decided to hold it with both hands, so she let go of the shelf and of course crashed to the ground.  I realize she doesn't have far to fall, but I always have little mini-heart attacks just the same.

Now that Eden is a big bad eight month old, I've started thinking of all the little things that I never want to forget.  I know parents always remember the big milestones... I think the majority of moms out there recall the first time their baby took a step or their first word.  But I want to remember the little things too.  I don't want to ever forget the way she looks stretttttching and blinking as she wakes up in the mornings or the way she freezes and scrunches up her face when she sees one of the dogs coming in anticipation of the inevitable lick or cold nose on her face - grinning, of course, because she loves her brothers.  I want to always be able to remember the sound of the little shriek she would let out if you put her foot onto the cold counter top when she was just a couple of months old.  (Okay, I admit we used to torture that poor girl and put her foot on something cold just to hear that adorable sound.)  One day, when I'm really old, I want to be able to lay in bed and picture her tiny self laying in her crib, sucking her thumb.  I want to be able to recall the way her face lights up and she gets all excited when I walk into her sight.  I don't want to forget the way her tiny body feels when I pick her up out of her crib in the middle of the night when she's been crying... I can feel her just relax against me, relieved that I'm finally there.  Or the way she clings to me when I turn on the Baby Bullet to make her food, and it's so loud.  She'll cry unless I'm holding her when it happens.  I want to remember the look she has on her face every morning and evening when she takes her first bite of whatever it is I'm feeding her at the time.  She's always so cautious, moving the food around in her mouth slowly, making sure she likes it, and if she decides she does, eagerly opening her mouth again and again like a little baby bird.  But I think my absolute favorite is the sounds she makes when she's content and sleeping - those little sighs are heavenly.

Oh, and the lemons.  I can't forget the lemons.  Right now, lemons cure everything.  She's upset?  Just let her sit on the counter and play with the lemons in the basket!  They make her so happy!  If only it could always be this way.  When she grows up, and some kid is mean to her at school.  "Here Eden, sit on the counter and play with the lemons."  Some stupid jerk broke her heart?  "Here's the lemon basket, Eden."  If only...

I will continue to take 4,000 pictures a day and write it all down.  One day I will be able to look through my pictures and read my words and relive it all.

One more picture... I snapped this today as Dustin was leaving to go dove hunting, and I love the way she's resting her head on him.

My loves.

It's A New Day... And I'm Feeling Good

I'm up bright and early this morning searching the internet for Halloween/Thanksgiving/Christmas/1st Birthday Party ideas.  I realize I'm a little early, but this time of the year flies by, and well, I hafta make sure Eden's first Holiday Season is spectacular.  As much as I don't want to rush time, I am just so excited about the next few months!

We've had a rough week.  After I was on here bragging about how Baby Girl takes two hour naps now in the afternoons, she decided to just stop with that sleep nonsense altogether.  Naps... nighttime... all of it.  For a little over a week, nobody in the house slept... ever.  But the crazy thing is, Eden was happy.  She wasn't waking up fussy or upset.  She was waking up ready to go, ready to play.  (Well she would cry if left in her crib.)  So she would be in bed with us, crawling all over us at three in the morning, laughing and pulling our hair.  Poor Dustin... there are so many times that I would think, okay, I really need to get up and take her out of here so that Dustin can get some sleep.  But I would be so exhausted that I... just... couldn't... get... up.  So we would both lay there, half-asleep, letting her crawl all over us and sticking a leg out every once in a while when she got too close to the edge.  She would fall back asleep after seriously, HOURS of this, only to wake up every morning by seven ready to go for the day.  Naps were just as bad.  One morning she actually took a TEN MINUTE nap.  After just ten minutes, she was awake, awake, awake and ready to play.  Me?  I was cranky.  Irritable.  Exhausted.  NOT ready to play.  Going slightly crazy.  Two nights ago, I texted a friend to tell her about Eden and how she never sleeps and crawls all over us at three in the morning, and she immediately called me.  She said she had been in that exact situation, and after listening to me freak out and talk about how tired I was and how I was pretty much sucking at being a mom right now because I did NOT have any energy to play with my baby when she wanted to play with me, she assured me that I was not a sucky mom and gave me advice.  We made a few easy adjustments (eating her solids right before bedtime to keep her belly full, moving up her bedtime to keep her from getting overtired, making her room as dark as possible), and she has slept so much better the past two nights.  I am a happy mama today because I actually feel well-rested.  Now if only I could figure out how to get her to take longer naps!

But for today, it's a new day, and I'm feeling good!

Now I have a holiday season to plan!

Happy Friday!