Seven years of Eden

This is a bit belated but I try to make a special blog about each child around their birthdays.
I have had ups and downs as a mother and whenever I honestly look at it, the only downside to parenting is my own selfishness, laziness or impatience, not any absence of greatness from my children. It's amazing, we have had seven years of Eden. I suppose it would make Adam and Eve jealous. I've always pictured them in Eden for maybe a few months and then blowing it.
Eden has been basically the best first child God could have given us. She is relatively quiet, intelligent, creative, not too bossy and very patient with the others. She's sensitive which has made school a bit of a journey but she seems to be doing well now and has a fun little circle of friends.
She lost three teeth this fall before she turned 7. It seems like we're running out of those little kid first memories.
What I love about Eden is how she cares about me. She's not quite child like. If I have a headache, she honestly wants to give me a massage. If I snap at her she politely tells me that's okay she'll do whatever she asked for later. It's very convicting and I think it's the only true motivator of change. Having a child willing to behave more maturely than me, really puts this parent on track. I volunteer in her class and when I come in, she makes me feel so loved. She just wants me to be with her every second and hugs me constantly.
She's a floating soul with a long attention span for imagination and a short one for penmanship. She loves math and seems to rarely get a problem wrong, comes home bursting with information about science, singing her songs from music and diligently trys at english and reading but I do believe she will be relieved when they tire of trying to make her write and hand her a laptop someday. Writing does not appear to be her forte. The more she has to write the less interested she is in the project.
Her giggle is one of the most addictive sounds. As a matter of fact, I can hear her making the whole crew giggle right now as they make stair sleds out of sleeping bags and tumble down. We have a foot of snow outside and if I were a great mom, I'd suit them up and take them to a sledding hill.
Some of Eden's finer moments this year have been:
She told me she made friends with a girl named Ella because she was always alone on the playground. I loved that she reached out to someone who seemed alone. When I met Ella's dad later he told me it was her first year. It brought a bit of joy to me.
She really does just play whatever Nick wants for hours. She does the same thing she did with Kait at this age where she feeds ideas to the little one and makes them feel like it was their idea and then makes it even better. She's a great friend to her siblings and I love that.
I guess I feel like a seven year old is just so big and so little. So big that she's going to school all day, marching in with her backpack and her lunch sack, but just so little next to all of those other kids. So big compared to her siblings but so little when I can't get her out the door in the morning because she's still pretending a big scenario with Kaitlyn while I yell "PUT YOUR SHOES ON!" She's doing really great with school. She gets distracted but I'm told that goes with the territory.
On her birthday, I took cupcakes in to her class and had them all set out when the kids came back from a specials class. The children came pouring in bursting out with exclamations like "CUPCAKES, ORANGE JUICE, I LOVE CHOCOLATE!!!!!!" Ms. Baxter was repeating in a normal voice over and over "Please go to your seats and do not touch the cupcakes." It was pandamonium. I watched the kids pour in and wondered where Eden was. I should have known she'd be last. She's the pokiest puppy in the crew. She walked in, her eyes slid over the room, and then came to rest on me. She smiled, walked over to me, wrapped her arms around me and said "Thank you Mommy." She quietly sat down at her desk, listened to the birthday song and snarfed down her cupcake. It kinda felt like I got the big gift. What a lady to just thank me like that with such sincerity.
Her birthday party at the Rec Center was fun too. She climbed the rock wall which she's always wanted to do and she swam almost to her hearts content. I made a rainbow of cupcakes that turned out pretty cute and all of the kids seemed to have fun. Her Grandapa and Grandma Allen drove out for the week, so she had a special taxi service to school and whatnot. It seemed more like a birth week than a birthday.
I love you so much Eden.