Eden - Eighteen Months & Schlitterbahn

I had a hard time getting Eden to sit in her chair again this month, so even though you see her diaper more than her little dress, I said, "Good enough!"  She preferred dragging her chair around the yard to sitting in it.

Last week I sat down and started reading through some of my blog posts from last year.  Two things stood out to me: 1. I use the phrase "soak it up" a lot.  I really need to find a new saying.  2. I was really sad about Eden getting older.

And I am sad about Eden getting older.  But it's a beautiful kind of sad.  A happy kind of sad.  So as we hit eighteen months, which to me is another "big one", yes, I am sad.  I feel like this one transitions Eden from baby to toddler.  I will always miss my newborn Eden, my baby Eden and all the milestones we have behind us, but I am beyond beyond beyond happy and excited about this new phase and all the milestones we have in front of us.

Life with Eden right now?  Freaking beautiful.  As I mentioned before, I really struggled with months thirteen through fifteen.  Things gradually got better and easier during months sixteen and seventeen.  And now here we are - eighteen months.  And it rocks.  I know there will be other phases that we hit where I'm once again at a loss, and I won't have all the answers.  But right now - I got this.

Eden is amazing.  She's beautiful, adorable and smart.  She loves books and animals and exploring outside.  She's brave (there is not a slide to be found that's too tall for this child) and independent.  She's tough.  She has been literally run over by one of our dogs, and she stands right up like nothing happened.  She's sweet and girly and hugs her baby doll to her and gives her kisses.  And then she goes outside and plays with bugs.  Her father and I could not be more proud.

In the past, I feel like Eden wanted me around because she NEEDED me.  I was that lady who fed her, changed her diapers and rocked her.  Now I feel like she wants me around because she just plain LOVES me.  She used to kiss me when I would say, "Eden, give Mama a kiss."  Now when I'm holding her, sometimes she will just randomly lean in and kiss my cheek and grin at me.  Sometimes when I'm sitting on the floor, she will come up behind me and wrap her arms around me.  She reaches for my hand and takes me with her wherever she goes.  She is my little pal, and we have the best days together.

She also has a naughty side, and when she is fixing to do something that she KNOWS she's not supposed to do, she will look at me, tell me "bye-bye" and blow me kisses to try and GET RID OF ME so that she can do it.  Sorry kid, I'm not that dumb.

She knows every single one of her flashcards now so we've moved on to learning colors.  She can identify red, yellow and blue for me.

Yep... she's pretty freakin' awesome.

*****

Thursday morning Eden and I went to New Braunfels and met up with my mom, Mark and Jacob at Schlitterbahn.  We stayed there for two days, and for two days, Eden played hard.

I have the BEST memories from my childhood of times spent at Schlitterbahn.  My family and a bunch of other families would go to New Braunfels for days in the summertime - all of us kids running around Schlitterbahn by day and then swimming in the river in the evenings.

On Thursday, I stayed with Eden and took her to all of the little kiddie attractions.  But on Friday, I left her with my mom and Mark, and I ran around Schlitterbahn with Jacob like I was a little kid again.  There I was - twenty-seven years old - whooping and hollering on the rides and in the wave pool with a bunch of twelve and thirteen year olds.  When does it become sad for me to still run around Schlitterbahn like a little kid?  Shit, is it already?  I don't care.  I love Schlitterbahn.  There are moms out there that will give their children advice on life and love and other big topics.  Me?  Well to my offspring I will leave my knowledge of the Schlitterbahn water park.  I know that water park like the back of my hand, and when Eden gets older, I will teach her what rides to ride in what order to make sure that you get the maximum amount of rides ridden in the smallest amount of time.  Eden is a lucky, lucky child to get my Schlitterbahn wisdom.  Take that other moms!

More Sweet Summertime

Some favorite photos from the past few days:

Those boots!  She wears those boots more than anything else she owns, and I feel like when she outgrows them, I need to clean them up the best I can and display them somewhere!  They sit at our backdoor, and she brings them to me to let me know when she wants to go outside.  Which is pretty much all the time.

She couldn't decide if she liked this little guy or not.  Every time he jumped, she would kind of freak out, but then she would crack up.

more water trough afternoons

a day trip to Matagorda last Saturday

She won't drink orange juice (or any juice), but put some freshly squeezed orange juice in the popsicle maker and she's in heaven!

Eden is eighteen months old today!  I'm just waiting for her to wake up, and then she and I are headed to Schlitterbahn for two days.  Yayyyyyyy!

The Livin' Is Truly Easy

I turned twenty-seven eight days ago.  This was the first time that I was actually dreading my birthday.  Toward the end of June, when I would remember that my birthday was coming up, instead of feeling my usual excitement, I would panic.  There's just something about that seven... or the fact that I'm now in the "late twenties" group instead of the "mid-twenties" group... or the fact that I'm now way way closer to thirty than I am to twenty...  How the heck did THAT happen?  The closer the day got, the worse my mood became.  I had to actually apologize to Dustin a few times for being so rude.  Dustin just thought it was funny and tried to make it worse by saying things like, "Did you like how the waiter didn't ID you?" after I ordered a margarita at a Mexican restaurant or pointing out how quickly the last three years have gone by so "thirty will be here before you know it!"  I hate him sometimes.  Two days before my birthday though, I decided to stop pouting.  (Dustin also helped in my decision as he finally told me to GET OVER MYSELF!)  I am going to make sure twenty-seven is my best year ever.  EVER.  "After all", I told Dustin, "my favorite numbers are two and seven, and I won't get this chance again until I'm seventy-two!"  Lame?  Probably.  But it worked, and it got me really excited about turning twenty-seven.

On the morning of my birthday, I woke up really early so that I could take a shower, fix my hair and actually put on make-up before Eden got up.  I put on a dress because I wanted to look pretty on my birthday, and I put Eden in a sweet little dress and bow as well.  Eden had a music class that morning. (I signed her up for a summer baby music class.)  After her class, I chose a cute little cafe for lunch, and we ate outside.  Eden was absolutely delighted by all the birds that kept landing on our table.  She would laugh and scream, "FLY FLY" and strangers would look at us and grin.  Then I treated myself to four new books at Barnes and Noble and some news clothes at Banana Republic.  Before heading home, we swung by Ooh-la-la so I could pick up a strawberry cupcake for myself, a chocolate cupcake for Dustin and a mini strawberry cupcake for Eden.

Now Dustin has the same birthday as me.  Everyone thinks that is just the cutest thing ever when they find out about it, but I HATE IT!  HATE IT, HATE IT, HATE IT!  I actually suggested this year that he go to the courthouse and pay money to get a new birthday.  He said it's my fault since I was born second.  So since it was his birthday, he decided to go play golf with some friends after work.  And unfortunately since it was his birthday, I had to let him instead of pitching a fit and insisting that he spend MY birthday with me.  I've been dealing with having to accommodate him on my birthday for eight years now.  It sucks.  (I'm kinda kidding, kinda not...)  Eden and I still had a good evening playing in the water trough (best thing we've ever bought), and Dustin came home in time for us to all enjoy our cupcakes together.

After Eden went to sleep, Dustin and I sat outside watching the sun go down and drinking white wine.  A lot of white wine.  And I learned the next morning that my body cannot handle as much white wine as it could when it was twenty-six.

It was nothing fancy, but I thought it was a great birthday.  I loved eating and shopping with my girl (she was PERFECT that day - there are definitely days that she does NOT want to go out eating and shopping!), and I loved my evening spent with Dustin.

And for the past eight days, twenty-seven has continued to be pretty dang great.  I've learned by the age of twenty-seven that it's the small, simple things that truly make me the happiest.

Dustin and I have this whole summer thing figured out.  At the end of last week, HEB was having a huge sale on lobster so Dustin went and did his version of shopping and now our freezer is full of lobster tail and our pantry is stocked with wine.  We've had grilled lobster, lobster ravioli, stuffed lobster... and when we're not eating lobster, we're eating something off the grill.  We spend peaceful evenings outside - Dustin grills, I relax and sip my white wine and Eden either runs around in the yard or plays in her water trough.

I sit there relaxing, watching my husband grill and my baby play, and I think there's no way my life could be any sweeter.  Why was I so worried about turning twenty-seven?  I have everything I've ever wanted.  Every night after Eden goes to bed, Dustin and I have continued with our sunset watching/wine drinking.  It's been such a wonderful, peaceful, relaxing, happy summer so far.  A simple, but perfect, summer.

Also, Eden was THE cutest baby (kid? eek!) ever on the 4th of July.

But she's always the cutest baby ever!

bought her a balloon at the grocery store today... pretty sure I'll have to do it every single time from now on...

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!