18 months!

Sweet Eden,

You’re a year and a half old now and you are definitely a toddler! You’re an expert walker and runner; you can even walk backwards now! My favorite mobility-related move is when you get a book, bring it to me, and back up to sit in my lap, your bottom all stuck out and leading your way!

You love to dance; any time there is music going, you will stop what you’re doing, bend over, and shake your arms and head to the beat. You’ve got rhythm, baby girl! It’s adorable!
You have really started talking a lot. You’ve added a bunch of words to your vocabulary (including “dance” of course). I love listening to your little voice! You’ve started replacing some signs with words (like “more” and “eat”) and you’re putting words together. Yesterday you saw Daddy’s hat and you said, “Hat. Daddy. Bye-bye.” It’s so amazing to see your little mind make connections!!

You are expressing your (STRONG) will more and more, especially during diaper changes. For some reason you really, really hate having your diaper changed. I think it’s because you don’t like to sit still. Last weekend we started trying to potty train you. Daddy brought a potty home on Christmas Eve and we let you go diaper-free periodically over the next few days. You love your potty; if we ask you to sit on it you’ll happily sit, and you even go in there by yourself to have a seat sometimes! On Saturday you finally used the potty and I got VERY excited. You didn’t think it was such a big deal. And about 2 hours later I was cleaning up a puddle. Oh well. It’s a process!

You are so much fun, sweet girl. There is so much I would like to tell you about yourself but I couldn’t even express half of the things I enjoy about being around you. You’re so happy and excited and giggly most of the time, it is impossible not to smile. You explore everything and it is really refreshing to see things through your little eighteen-month-old eyes, to watch you figure things out.

Your hands and arms are healing beautifully - my, you're fearfully and wonderfully made! You will always be able to tell you were burned, but you won't notice right away and the scars will not interfere with daily function. You are dealing pretty well with the continued scar management issues. We're doing massage on your scars at least twice a day, and you're becoming slightly more tolerant; in fact you know getting a massage comes with watching a little TV (a REAL treat) so you sometimes willingly grab the Eucerin cream, take it to the couch, climb up, and point to the TV!

I love you, Miss Eden. Keep learning and growing, but don’t grow up too fast! We love you just how you are!

Love,

Mommy

How lucky am I?

I get to be married to this cutie pie:


And I get to be Mommy to this cutie pie*:


Thanks to our friend BB for the great pictures, and thanks to the Hope Fellowship community for a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner last Friday!

_____________________________

*Note that Eden is (possibly temporarily) bandage-free... her skin is super-sensitive and is reacting to everything so they've decided to leave it be - with the exception of Eucerin and massage 3x a day - and see what happens for a while. We will see on Dec. 1.

Halloween 2009

I'm a few days late but I wanted to post about our happy, happy Halloween!

A few days before the holiday Eden came to work with me for our annual Halloween party. Everyone brings in their kids (grandkids, nieces, nephews, etc) for a costume parade, magic show, pizza, Goldfish, snacks, and LOTS of candy. It's crazy but it's really fun - there's something about having a ton of kids around, and seeing people with their kids, that seems to remind everyone that we've all got lives outside the office! Eden was adorable, dressed as her favorite animal - a duck!


Our good friend Mr. B (Eden calls him "Bubba") was born on Halloween, so we went over to his house for an early dinner to celebrate his 8th birthday. Since it was a beautiful day (Why, hello, 70 degrees!! I was worried I wouldn't see you again until May!!) we walked - they live at the end of the block. Since OSU had a big game against UT and we needed all the help we could get (which ended up not helping...) Eden dressed up as an OSU cheerleader:



(Funny thing about this is, this was B's sister H's costume. Eden's costume last year was B's first costume!)

We had a great time at dinner. Eden played with the kids at the party and loved playing pin the tail on the donkey! After dinner we walked home. On the way we passed a house with people sitting outside handing out candy, and they asked us to stop, so Eden had her first trick-or-treat. She got Daddy a Reese's and a Starburst! And then we stopped downstairs for a quick hello to our neighbor.

Scar Management

Miss Eden's healing process is going very well. We went to the hospital last Tuesday and they said that her wound is healed! Yay!! So we've moved from wound care to scar management. That is all very good news.

However, I don't think we knew what we were in for with "scar management." They told us it means massaging her scars for at least 5 minutes at a time, twice a day. Doesn't sound so bad, right? Well... Eden hates it. The forearms she can deal with - not really a big deal, though it makes her a little nervous. But head toward her palms and she fights and cries, kicks and screams and yanks her hands away. Tuesday evening I did it by myself (after being told by the OT that we needed to massage harder or her scars would start to really be thick and unmanageable) and that resulted in both of us sobbing and holding each other at the end.

Bryan, the next morning, when he had the job to himself, came up with a brilliant idea: distraction. And what better distraction than a boy band for preschoolers?

Oh, the Wiggles. Yes, she does still hate the palm massage, and yes, she does still kick and scream, but less so... and she calms down ever so easily - and honestly, so do I - with their happy songs and colorful videos playing! (It helps, I think, that she is normally not allowed to watch TV - it's weird that she's so mesmerized, but we're glad!) Thank you Zek for sending the video!

72 hour sale...

Southwest is having a HUGE sale on airfare right now... but ONLY until TOMORROW, OCT 29!

Flights at $25 (0-374 mi); $50 (375-549 mi); $75 (550-999 mi); and $100 (1000+ mi) when you fly on Dec 2-16 and Jan 5 - Feb 10.

I think we're going to come home for Christmas a little later this year. It will make our whole family's airfare (taxes included) under $500!! That's what we usually pay for one ticket!

(Anyone want to come to Boston in early December??)

You're welcome.

EDIT: Did you buy tickets? Just got ours... We'll be in OK mid-January!

Happy Naptime!

So... work has been insanely busy lately. I didn't see Eden at all on Monday, which was the first time in a year I had completely missed her awake. Tuesday we went to the hospital for her doctor's appointment and got excellent news - no more surgery for our baby for at least another couple of months! Yay!

After the appointment I headed right to work, and rushed home, arriving at about 7:00 to find this:

Yes, my daughter, who usually goes to bed at about 8:00-8:30pm, fell asleep in her highchair before even taking the first bite of her grilled cheese sandwich. And the best part? Daddy caught the whole thing on video!

Again...

7:00 Tuesday morning, October 20, almost exactly one month after surgery #1, the surgeon will decide whether to go forward with surgery #2. We are to come to the hospital prepared for it, and if he says it's a go, it's a go, right then and there.

A little dime-sized spot in the center of Eden's palm is still not healed. Another graft may be in our future.

As I was leaving for work this morning

I heard the sweetest thing:

Buh Bye... Eye yuh you....

Seriously? Omigoodness. Knock me over with cuteness.

Eden has fingers again!

OK, to be fair, she always had fingers, she just couldn't use them because they were covered in her dressings. But today her fingers were sprung from their gauze prison, and little Eden re-discovered picking up Cheerios the old way and feeding herself, holding toys in one hand, and all other sorts of fine motor magic.

The doctor's appointment went as well as we could possibly hope today. The doctor said that her hands look great. She won't need surgery anytime in the near future, as far as he can tell. He also authorized much smaller bandages, so her fingers and forearms are exposed now. And he said we could give her a bath - she hadn't had a bath since September 9. That's 27 days.

All day long I was looking forward to giving that little girl a bath. I was totally fixated on that little tiny detail - it was the thing I couldn't wait for. I left work and skipped to the T, came home and scarfed down my dinner so that we could get to it. She loved the bath, just like normal. She splashed and giggled and smiled and loved on her ducks! I know it seems strange, it seems so little, but that was such an amazing moment. For some reason it became the symbol of the beginning of the end of this whole ordeal, and I get all teary-eyed just thinking about it.

It's almost a little weird to see her use her hands like it's no big deal. It's amazing that she can just pick right back up where she left off, but I'm so used to her having to struggle that it's strange to see her do things with such ease. But it is beautiful.

I am so thankful that God has answered our prayers and healed our baby.

15 1/2 months

Sweet Eden,

This is not a milestone post, you're not at any particular age necessitating an update on yourself, you're just amazing and I wanted to let you know. This past almost-month has been difficult, to say the least. You've been through a lot; we all have. But you are such a trooper. Instead of being frustrated about all the things you can't do, you're figuring out new ways to do them (like eating Cheerios - you lick your unbandaged thumb and stick it to a Cheerio to pick it up). Instead of being weirded out by your bandages, you're falling in love with your reflection.

And you're taking the opportunity to take huge strides in language development. You've learned so many new words over the past month! You can now say no; duck ("duh"); mama; dada; mommy (my favorite!); daddy; uh-oh; hi; bye; eye; night-night ("nigh-nigh"); "this" (which, accompanied by a point, means you want something); hot (when you spit out your food); balloon ("ba-oon"); ball ("bah"); woah; whee; and most recently, "daaaaisy" (for whoops-a-daisy - Angela gets credit for that one!). I also think you can say Nino but I'm not certain because you've only done it once and it might have been an accident.

You have learned that food coming out of the microwave is hot, and if you see us blow on it to cool it off before we give it to you, you blow on it before taking a bite. Then you spit it out and say "hot." If I tell you it's not hot and offer it again, you smile and eat it. This is what happens with every bite.

Also, though it's been somewhat overshadowed by all the drama of the last month, you had your first camping trip over Labor Day weekend. I am so glad we had that trip, that we made those memories. You loved camping. You got incredibly dirty, you walked all over the campsite, pushed the stroller around, and made piles of pinecones. We went to the lake nearby and you got in with me and splashed like crazy. Then we saw a real duck - you LOVE ducks, and you were chasing it and saying "duh! duh! duh!" and trying to catch it. It was faster than you, though, and ran away. I love that moment.

You amaze me, Little One, and I hope you know how loved you are - by your Mommy and Daddy, by the people around you (and around the world!), and most of all by your Father in Heaven.

Keep surprising us, Love, and keep getting better.

Love,

Mommy