So Sarah and Eden went to Phoenix for a week to visit the family Robertson and when they came back I had a different daughter. Oh, she looked similar to the old Eden, except maybe with a little more hair and an extra inch of height and ounce of weight, but this girl was doing things I had never seen before. All of a sudden, Eden was not just crawling, but crawling well. She wasn't happy to piddle about in the general area we put her in--she had learned that she could go from room to room, which makes keeping track of her immeasurably more difficult to keep up with. This seems like a simple enough development step, but for Eden it's nothing short of remarkable; until now she never showed any sign that she realized there was more than the few square feet immediately surrounding her. Now she's remembering the veggie puff she dropped in the dining room, or Ne-Hi's water bowl in the kitchen that she knows she's not supposed to play with, and she's crawling to get them--from the living room or the bedroom or the bathroom, at any time of the day. Her world just exploded in size, and she's remembering where it all is.
She's not content with crawling, though; she's now pulling up on couches and chairs to stand on her feet (whose purpose up until now was to provide tickle buttons for Sarah and I to make Eden laugh, or maybe for Eden to gnaw on in a pinch). She's like a mountain climber tossed into the Sangre de Cristos--she can't resist seeing something taller than her and not immediately climb it.
And she's talking now, too. Oh, she's not exactly quoting Shakespeare, yet--her speeches are mainly variations on the na-na-na da-da-da ma-ma-ma theme--but she's trying. I know she's trying, because her vocalizations are directed at things (her momma, mainly). When she's tired or hungry or whiney, it's ma-ma-ma; when she's playing or excited it's ba-ba-ba or na-na-na. She said da-da-da all through the Phoenix trip, but she apparently decided that was so last week, because she hasn't said it once since she got back (or maybe she just doesn't like me).
And there's a myriad of other little changes which may not get specifically noticed but which collectively add up to a comletely different Eden. All within the last week or two, most of which I didn't get to see. And while that may be part of why she seems so different, the fact remains that she's doing things now that wasn't doing two Mondays ago. If Eden's life were TiVo, I'd think someone accidentally sat on the remote and fast-forwarded her infancy a little bit. A lot, actually; in a matter days she's gone from being our beautiful little baby to being our beautiful little handful.
She's still not sleeping, though (I write as Eden wakes up from yet another 15 minute nap). At least some things stay the same--much as we might want not want them to.
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