Can't Buy Me Love

Hi! I went to My-cago {Chicago} this weekend with Nana, Papa, Daddy, and Mama. I had so much fun! I got to go on a train! Nana let me stand on her seat and look out the window almost all the way! Then we went to a big hotel and I got to hit the button for the alligator {elevator} all the time! Our room was so big, and I got to sleep on two chairs pushed together - I liked it.

We went to restadonts {restaurants}, played in the mountains {fountains}, went on the beach, went to two museums, rode on a big, huge ferris wheel, and saw fireworks!

At one museum, I saw a tractor, a train, played in a fun room, saw a big model train, and a little, tiny fairy castle {Museum of Science and Industry}.

At the other museum, I saw dolphins, penguins, played in a submarine, saw sharks, and lots and lots of fish, otters, whales, and things {Shedd Aquarium}.

I really liked the big, huge ferris wheel. Mommy was nervous, but I helped her and told her it was okay. I got to see lots of buildings, the lake, and little tiny people below.

Then later that night, which was mommy's birthday, we saw fireworks. They were really loud! I covered my ears and nana hugged me. The fireworks were all different sizes and colors - it was fun.

I really liked one mountain {fountain}, it was two big towers and faces on them. The faces would smile, then they would spit water! I splashed and splashed! The other mountain {fountain} was really big, but I couldn't really play in it.

Oh, and I almost forgot - I went to the Jazz festival twice! I danced and really liked the live music. Mommy and Daddy danced with me - they are so much fun.

I had so much fun in My-cago, I really like to go there. And I even got to bring home a new stuffed animal - a dolphin to remind me of my trip. Thank you mommy, daddy, nana, and papa!

Lydia had an amazing summer, in large part because Cheryl is a teacher and had the summer off. Those two spent their days together playing, doing yoga, cooking, reading, napping, and generally having a summer vacation of it.

During the last three months she's grown tremendously. Her language skills and vocabulary have improved tremendously, and she can carry on a pretty good phone conversation if she's into it. All of the "terrible two" type behaviors she had in the spring became less of an issue this summer as she's matured. Most of the time, we are able to talk to her about things she's done wrong, and she genuinely seems to understand.  She's taller, stronger, faster, and more physically skillful, but that's to be expected I suppose.  I'm still amazed by how quickly things change.

A big positive change for us is that she's beginning to enjoy activities that Cheryl and I have largely had to forgo since she was born. We went camping a couple of times, and had more fun because Lydia was there.  We've gone to a couple of movies with her, "Up" and "Ponyo", and had a wonderful time. She has become far less shy over the last two months, and has a much better time when we visit friends. This has allowed our lives to become somewhat more "normal", less focused solely on her needs and more on the needs of all of us as a family.

Her biggest summer accomplishment happened just two weeks ago, when she learned how to use the potty all the time. We'd been laying the groundwork for this for quite a while, but not forcing anything on her. Finally, when we actually had an entire weekend at home, we decided that would be the day--no more diapers during the day. Two days later, it was no more diapers at night. Since then she's done very very well, having only had a couple of daytime accidents, none of them very inconvenient so far.

With the summer drawing to a close, Monday was Cheryl's first real day back at work. Lydia went to the same daycare we've been taking her to, but this time in the big toddler room. We both went in with her, and she gave a huge hug to her teacher, Kathy, in the little toddler room that she loves so much. In what seemed particularly symbolic, after she hugged her like every morning, she didn't run after Kathy and take her place there, but turned away and went through a door to sit next to the big toddlers.

When Cheryl picked Lydia up in the afternoon, her new teacher told her that Lydia and a friend had been inseperable all day. When it was time for Lydia to use the potty, she'd say "Come on Nisha!" to which her friend replied "Okay!". Then, they'd sit next to each other on the two toilets, even if Nisha didn't have to go. I think Lydia will be just fine there this school year.

I've been posting pictures of Lydia on my Flickr account as usual, so log in to see them there.

When Daddy got home yesterday, he was just as happy as I was!  Mommy made dinner and we were all eating when Daddy asked if I wanted to see a movie!  Of course I always say, "YES!" and I usually ask for Dora.  But Daddy said we were going to a movie theater.  I've never been to one before so I wasn't sure what he meant.  So after dinner, I took a shower and got into my pjs.  Daddy said it was silly to wear my pjs, and I like being silly so I didn't mind much.  Then we all got our shoes on and went outside.  Mommy started to go to the car and I told her not to go!  I was pretty sure that wherever we were going, it wasn't far from home (after all, I was in my pajamas!).  But Mommy said that we had to go on a little car ride to get to the movies.  We called Nana and told her about our plans.  She was very excited and she told me that the movie has lots of balloons!  Yea! I love balloons!  So we get to a parking lot, then we all walk into a building and Daddy talks to a lady behind a counter.  There are so many bright colors, sounds, and smells there!  And people!  They all seem happy.  We walked more into the building and through a dark door.  I didn't like the dark much and I didn't know where we were.  Then I saw all the chairs! Daddy picked a row and we found our seats; I sat on Mommy's lap for a little while.  Then Daddy showed me the stairs and we went all the way up to the top and waved at Mommy!  I think I like this place now.  Mommy told me that the big white square was a very big t.v.  Boy was she right!  It didn't take long for movies to start playing on the tv!  And they were loud!  Daddy said that the movie we were watching was called 'Up'; I wondered about the 'Down'.  We had to watch a lot of little movies before our balloon movie started!  By then I was sitting in my own seat, watching with amazement!  The movie was so good!  Parts were sad, some were a little scary, but most of it was happy and fun!  I really liked the balloons and the big pretty bird!  In the middle of the movie, Daddy started to go away, so I went with him to make sure he came back to the right movie.  We went back to the bright and colorful room and bought popcorn and pop!!  Mmmmmmm.  We came back and watched the rest of the movie with Mommy and we even shared our new treats with her.  At the end of the movie, people started to leave.  Mommy and Daddy and I waited.  Then I found out why - we got to play more on the stairs and go down different rows of seats!  Woohoo!  I had so much fun at the movie theater - I think I'd like to do that all the time!

This morning, Lydia got up and the Easter Bunny had visited our house! So she got to hunt for Easter Eggs. There were blue, yellow, purple, pink, and green eggs, and some of them had chocolate eggs inside. Lydia called them chocolate chip cookies. Here she is holding her basket when she had found them all (visit Flickr for more pictures).



Afterward, she had fun counting the eggs and sorting them by colors, and unwrapping the chocolate of course.  Here's Lydia counting the eggs in her basket.

Lydia has been developing like crazy.  From running to singing to counting to learning to ride a small bicycle, she sure has been busy! 

She is only 11 days from her 2nd birthday and I thought I would start recording some of the amazing things she does.  I plugged our RockBand microphone into the computer and practiced a few times with her.  She was quite shy at first, going to the other side of the room when I pointed the mic at her.  But she quickly saw the fun in it, picked up the mic, and started to sing.  In this recording, she is walking around the living room, unaware that I was recording her.  I played it back for her when she was done, and she got a huge smile on her face - she's so proud of herself!  So, without further ado, here is a recording of the ABC song.  Enjoy!

Lydia woke up this morning around 5:00 because her blankets had been kicked off and her room was quite cold. So, I brought her into bed with her Mama and I. She quickly fell back asleep and woke up again around 7:00. When she woke up she was upset and whimpering and crying softly.

I asked her what was wrong, and she answered, "My bloon!" Well, she doesn't have any balloons around the house, so I asked her again just to make sure.

"My bloon!" She cried. At this point, her Mama and I decided that she must have had a dream, so we tried to tell her that. We explained that it was a story she saw while she was sleeping, or it was not real, but she kept crying "My bloon!"

To the best of our knowledge Lydia had never indicated anything about dreaming before. I've even asked her if she sees pictures when she sleeps, or if anything happened before she woke up.

"What happened to your balloon, Lydia?" Mama asked.

"It went awayyy" Lydia whimpered.

"Away up in the sky?" I inquired.

"Ye-e-ss" Lydia said.

We kept trying to offer her some comfort, but she wanted that balloon back. Later, when we called Nana Kendall to tell her, Lydia said "It's way up high!" and said that the balloon was red, though when asked about a color she almost always says "red".

What a wonderful thing it is that the worst her dreams can summon is the thought of a cherished toy floating away.

Over the last month, Lydia has grown tremendously. She's taller and bigger, sure, but most of her growth hasn't been the physical sort.

Two weeks ago over Thanksgiving weekend, Lydia was happily drinking milk from bottles a few times a day and using pacifiers at night (well, maybe not happily, she was sick all Thanksgiving when we went down to visit her Uncle Tom and Aunt Linnae). Now, we've put away all of her pacifiers and bottles. She quit them cold turkey. For a year and half we rocked her to sleep with songs, bottles, and tummy rubs every night. Now she gets a few minutes of rocking but is rarely asleep when we put her to bed. Those were some of the last vestiges of her babyhood; she's officially a toddler now.

A pair of back-to-back colds mixed with a flu were really keeping her down for about three weeks. When she finally felt better about a week and a half ago, she started talking in short sentences and hasn't stopped since. She uses sentences now like "I was sleeping", "Snowman fell down", or "Reindeer guys funny". She has a couple of four word ones too, like "I wanna sit down". Her first official sentence, I suppose, came as she was helping Mama with the dishes one day. She was singing a little song to herself, and we realized the words went "Helpin' the Mama, Helpin' the Mama".

With her newfound verbal power, Lydia has laid comment to virtually everything in her sightlines. This makes following her talking quite difficult. But she's patient, repeating herself many times, and we eventually learn.

What's surprised me, though, is how Lydia has started to tell me things I didn't already know. She can deliver messages from Mama, and she tells me about school, or about something she saw outside. Last Friday, we all watched "Frosty the Snowman" together, and Lydia spent almost five minutes when we went to bed telling me about the movie. She hasn't stopped talking about it yet, really. She also requests that we sing "Frosty the Snowman" four or five times a day, and she sings and dances about Frosty several times a day too.

Speaking of infatuations, Lydia is absolutely in love with Dora the Explorer. She has a few pajamas with Dora on them, and requests them every single night. She also has one Dora shirt, and every day asks to wear that. Whenever one of those garments is put on her, she starts singing the Dora the Explorer theme song--which she's only heard probably 5 times--and dancing around waving her arms in the air. This morning, she woke up and immediately talked to me about Dora. She didn't have one of her Dora PJs on, and she was nowhere in sight, so I'm pretty sure she had a dream with Dora in it. And today, when we took her to Meijer's toy section and did some shopping for her, she spent a joyous 15 minutes pointing at every Dora toy on the shelves (later, when we went to Treehouse Toys, there wasn't a single Dora item in the store--Cheryl and I are very fond of that store, the toys there are wonderful).

This morning, Lydia and I woke up to get an early breakfast, and afterward she sang me a song. Here's how it went:
"Gicky fish, gicky fish, swimming thew the waatuh...gicky fish, gicky fish...". That's a song she sings at her day care ("gicky" is the word for "slippery", which I think is a pretty good description of how a fish feels). She also knows the tune, and the hand gestures to it. What surprised me was how much she knew without prompting or me singing first, she brought it up out of the blue.

Perhaps the best part of her suddenly improved ability to communicate is that we can almost always get her to communicate her needs and wants with words rather than crying. She still occasionally cries the inconsolable tears of a baby, but generally only when very tired, exceptionally hungry, or sick. Other times, she either directs us to go somewhere with verbal commands and pulling (much like a rider guides a horse, Lydia guides her Mama and I while we carry her), or we ask her several things and eventually get an affirmative response.

But, with newfound power comes greater responsibility. We long ago instituted the "time out" as a means of punishment--mostly to get her to calm down and reflect on her behavior. Now, since we know she knows what we're asking or telling her to do, she can get sent to time out at the base of the stairs. We carry her over and set her down, and tell her exactly what she did wrong. She stays for a little while (I think they use time out at day care too, so she knows how the drill works from seeing it in action with other kids), and eventually comes back crying a little less loudly. Most of her time outs come at dinner time, thanks to a newly-instituted "you have to at least try it" policy.

Her emotional range has broadened greatly as well. She has added some rather blatant crocodile tears to her repertoire. But far more importantly, she has become so much more affectionate and outgoing with her feelings. After wrestling around and tickling with her for a little while, she'll often spontaneously give us kisses and big hugs. She also loves to kiss booboos, hers or ours. And her joy at seeing a familiar face come through the door lights up the room like a fireplace in winter. She also shows concern, asking "wha happen?" and turning her hands up in the air when one of us stubs a toe or pinches a finger (She was also very concerned that the snowman in the backyard fell over this morning. She talked about it all morning until finally I went out with her and we fixed it, and built a second so it wouldn't be lonely).

Both of us are astounded by how rapidly she's changed. And if it wasn't totally obvious, we are overwhelmed with pride about her. Not just for her accomplishments, but for how hard she works at all of them.

It may be somewhat cliche to say that we could all learn something from young children. But it's absolutely true, there are many traits of her young personality that we'd all do well to emulate. Lydia is happy while ill, ready to play the moment she wakes up, curious about everything, unabashedly joyful, and more recently, extremely excitable.

This morning, for instance, Lydia and I were in the parking lot at our house. I was loading stuff in the car, and Lydia, looking around, saw some birds in a tree. She shouted to the birds "Birdies!" followed by a few paragraphs of Lydia-words. Then, when one of the birds flew from one end of the parking lot to the other, she chased it, shouting "birdie! birdie!" with a huge smile on her face. She was absolutely delighted by those birds.

Animals in general are something that just light a fire in her, and she knows about a dozen animal sounds pretty well (that's about all we know, I'm sure she'd love to know more). She's had a special attachment to monkeys for a long time. A while back, Cheryl decided to show Lydia the TV show Curious George on PBS, and she absolutely loved it. She doesn't get to watch much TV, but she prefers Curious George over just about anything we've showed her. I bought her the book last week, and it became an instant favorite.

A few months ago, Lydia received a hand-me-down nightgown from her cousin Kennedy with Dora the Explorer and Boots the monkey on it (a character from the show). Lydia developed a strong attachment to it the first time she wore it, and got very angry with me when I took it off, which required me literally prying the nightgown out of her fingers. That's not the only one she just loves, she also defends her Strawberry Shortcake (the cartoon character) nightgown to the last each morning. But that Dora nightgown was something else entirely, probably in part because of the monkey on it.

On Saturday, Lydia's Nana Kendall came over and brought Lydia some presents. One of the presents was a pair of footie pajamas with Dora and Boots on it. When Nana Kendall pulled those PJs out of their bag, Lydia completely freaked out with joy. She yelled and screamed and bounced, and her eyes were huge and wide with excitement. I have never seen a reaction like that. It's as if every single part of her was excited about those PJs, and everything wanted to express that excitement as loudly as possible.

Saturday evening, Lydia got to wear her new pajamas and was so happy about it. She kept trying to take the socks off, but eventually gave up when we convinced her they are permanently attached. Sunday morning, we thought we'd give Lydia the special treat of showing her an episode of Dora the Explorer on the computer. We don't get Nickelodeon, so she'd never seen the real show. Cheryl found a video on You Tube, and Lydia's reaction to it was completely off the charts. I made Cheryl pause the video so that I could record Lydia watching it. That recording is below (if you can't see it, just go over to Flickr).



Lydia got another special gift from her Nana Kendall on Saturday, too. About a week back, I'd called Mom to ask her if she could bring a certain monkey from Cara's bedroom for Lydia to play with. So, she brought the monkey to Lydia and with it she brought a beautiful homemade book. It's a picture book about the monkey, who is now named "Kima" (which is Swahili for monkey), and his visit to Nana Kendall's house. There's pictures of Kima doing all of Lydia's favorite things, like kicking a ball, rocking on the swing, and taking a bubble bath. It's a gorgeous book that expresses creativity and love in a way I'm pretty sure only Nana Kendall is capable of doing.

A month or so ago, Cheryl and I started bringing Lydia up to the potty when we could tell she was going poop. We celebrated each success, and made going potty a fun game. Just like all the books and magazines said, we have not pressured her at all, nor said anything bad if she didn't make it to the potty first. Now, she does most of her pooping on the potty, and can even tell us "Poopoo, potty".

This morning when we got up, Lydia went into the bathroom with me and said "Peepee, potty". I thought she was just commenting on me going to the bathroom, but she kept pointing to her diaper so I set her up there. Sure enough, she went pee for the first time!

By no means is Lydia "potty trained", but I think we've set down a path that will gradually lead to fewer and fewer diapers, and more visits to the bathroom. She's quite young yet, so we are totally unconcerned about making this a full time thing. For now, we're just proud of her.

For a while now, all of the signs have been pointing in the same direction. Her Mama and I, though, dragged our feet. We can both still so vividly remember the moment that our little girl entered our lives, so tiny and yet so very large.

Last week our friends had a baby, and at more than 9 lbs she was nearly the same size as Lydia. The evening after little Elizabeth was born, we visited her and her parents in the hospital (coincidentally the very same room that Cheryl, Lydia, and I stayed in), Lydia amused her self by doing somersaults off my lap in between passing out friendly little fist bumps to everyone in the room. There was this tiny little girl whose very life seems as fragile as her tiny fingers and toes, next to our little girl who by comparison was not so little anymore.

It's been some weeks now since Lydia formally passed into toddlerhood by returning to daycare. There, no longer in the infant room but the Little Toddler's room, Lydia has continued to blossom. Every day, she paints or draws nearly, sings songs, plays games like dress-up and kitchen, reads stories, and plays on the playground with the other kids. Lydia even brings home new things she learned at school--something she never did before.

Last week, as I strapped her into her carseat one morning, I started singing to her: "The wheels on the car go round and round, round and round, round and round. The wheels on the car go round and round, all the way to school." Lydia instantly lit up upon hearing this tune, and started rolling her hands in a hand gesture that she learned at school while singing the proper version of that song ("The wheels on the bus"). It turns out she knew quite a few more verses, could even try and sing the "All through the town" refrain, and even knows "The itsy bitsy spider." I nearly fell off my chair that evening at dinner when Lydia showed off her moves. She was absolutely thrilled that we were so impressed, and wouldn't let us stop making up verses, demanding "More, more!" whenever we grew weary.

Also apparently Lydia gets patted on the back at nap time, shushed, and sang to, including songs like "Rock a bye baby". We know this because one of her current favorite games is to go around the house with a stuffed kitty and a blanket, wrap up the kitty and pat it on the back singing "Rocku rocku bebe" and shushing. A couple of evenings ago Cheryl and I were subjected to the same treatment at Lydia's bedtime. We had to be on our stomachs, not our backs or she would roll us over. There was only one blanket between the two of us though, so Lydia's gentle night-night pats and songs didn't quite do the trick.

Last Friday, we had some college friends in town before the football game on Saturday. Saturday morning while everyone relaxed on the back deck drinking coffee, Lydia and I played around with her ball in the back yard. The ball rolled down the sidewalk toward an apple tree, under which lay our neighbor's scooter. It's pink and has three wheels, and Lydia loved it. She picked it up and instantly asked me to push her on it, so I did. While Lydia very proudly stood on the scooter, I wheeled her up and down the sidewalk for ten minutes. Every time we passed Cheryl, Lydia would yell "Mama!" and laugh hysterically when Cheryl sounded impressed. I could just see her in a few years, hair grown long, big strong legs peddling furiously on her bike: "Mama, look at me!"

Having Lydia as a baby was the absolute most wonderful time of our lives so far, and every week brought new joys. Because of that, we are very sad to finally acknowledge the passing of an age. But then again, now we can talk to Lydia, she can tell us what she wants, and she can tell us that she loves us. "Love you!" she says sweetly. Each phase we've entered so far has been our favorite, and I see no sign of that changing anytime soon.

It has been more than three months since we updated Lydia's journal for the very good reason that she has been changing more rapidly than we could document. I couldn't possibly list everything that Lydia has been doing since May, but a lot of it is captured over at Flickr. But there have been a couple of very memorable events that I want to recall here. There are a number of pictures and even a video in this entry, so if you can't see them log into Flickr (you have to be my contact, email Anthony if you need more info).

Ashley and Brooks' Wedding

Cheryl's cousin Ashley got married to a great guy named Brooks on June 7th. The wedding ceremony was brief, which was good because Lydia's attention is not yet all that great. During the long break before the reception, Lydia got a nice nap in the car, and hit the reception floor running--quite literally. I spent the entire day walking after her, dancing with her, running after her, and generally getting worn out.


Here she is dancing with her cousin Kennedy.

Cheryl and I had never seen Lydia so much in her element, though. She spent the entire day laughing, talking, and moving. At this point, she had really just learned how to walk steadily, and she took off with it.


Telling stories to Mama and Grandma

One fun part of the evening for me was when Lydia and I watched the Belmont Stakes. Lydia loves horses, and I love horse racing apparently. We were both disappointed to see Big Brown lose that race.

After a very full day that Cheryl and I worried about quite a bit beforehand, Lydia was totally pooped, but very happy.

July 4th

Independence Day fell on a Friday this year, which Cheryl and I were excited about because it meant we could afford to stay up late for fireworks! All three of us spent much of the day hanging out with Nana Kendall over at my Aunt Karla and Uncle Greg's house. They have a putting green in their back yard that Lydia had a blast with. I did my best to show her how to putt, and she loved taking the balls out of the cup and carrying them over to a different cup.

For fireworks, we had a big plan to go out to South Haven, until we discovered they were having theirs on Sunday. After a quick scramble of online searching, I found that St. Joseph had fireworks on the lake that evening. Cheryl, Nana Kendall, Lydia and I packed up our stuff and headed to the lakeshore. We got there about 8 PM, which meant we had a couple of hours until fireworks. The moment we got to the beach, we stood within 100 feet of a giant playset, so we laid down our blankets and settled in.

It took Lydia a little while to warm up to the surroundings. There were, in my estimate, at least 5,000 people at the beach. But, within 15 minutes she was playing in the sand.



And, 15 minutes after that, Nana had her on the playset. She had a blast going through tunnels, up stairs, down slides, and playing with other children.



By about 10:00, it was time for Lydia's evening bottle (that we'd kept warm in an insulating bag). She settled in with Nana, eyes drooping, hands running through her hair. Just as she had fallen asleep, the first fireworks went off. She awoke with a start and almost instantly said "Oooh" about the fireworks. With rapt attention, she watched one of the finest fireworks shows I've ever seen. Nevertheless, by the end Lydia had drifted off again.


Illuminated by the glow of the Grand Finale

Weekends at Her Grandparents

Twice during the summer, Lydia spent two nights without us at each of her Grandparents'. The first time, in late July, Cheryl and I had a wedding to go to in Indianapolis. The second time, in early August, Cheryl and I had a two-night stay at a bed and breakfast in Grandville. For us, at least, this was a big new thing. We were so nervous leaving her behind. Cheryl had never spent a night without her up to that point, in fact.

Her stays went well for the most part, though she was somewhat ill at Nana Kendall's house. Maybe most importantly, she got to spend time with her Grandparents without us. Those relationships will be so important to her becoming a strong young lady. That is not to mention how valuable it was for us to have some time to be a little more adult!

Each time, she was SO excited to see us when we came back. She is a very affectionate person, and gives some really wonderful hugs.

Aunt Cara's Wedding Weekend

Just last weekend, August 17th, Lydia's Aunt Cara got married to (now) Uncle Travis. Two days before, Cara and Travis threw a big party in Ann Arbor as a pre-celebration. We arrived at the party 5 minutes past bedtime, but with the exception of a small meltdown involving getting a pair of shoes on her feet, Lydia had a great time. We were at the party until 11:30, and Lydia spent much of that time pushing people out of chairs that she'd claimed. She also raided the toddler-height smorgasboard of appetizers voraciously. Cara and Travis' friends treated her like a little princess, and she certainly acted the part! She amazed us all by lasting through the night, still awake until we got in the car to drive to our hotel.

The next morning, Lydia ate a feast for breakfast, and caught a small nap on the way to Kazoo. That was to be her only nap of the day, which followed just 8 hours of sleep. Normally, she sleeps at least 11 hours, and can comfortably go 13. Plus she adds 2-3 hours of naps during the day. We ran around all day long, preparing for an evening double-reverse-surprise 50th/80th birthday party for my Aunt Ann and Grandparents Kendall. The party had about 40 Kendalls at it, including my young cousins Kendall and Stephanie. Lydia did very well at the party, and kept going until 10:00. But a warm bottle proved too much for her, and she fell asleep in her Mama's arms--something that doesn't happen all that often, to our dismay.



She slept through the last 30 minutes of the party, right through all kinds of laughted, a group photo, and getting put into her carseat.

Cara's wedding day went much as Ashley's had earlier, with Lydia running, playing, laughing, talking, and generally living it up. The wedding was at my Grandparents home, which is a log cabin in a good sized clearing in a wooded area.



She had so much fun with her family, and I could practically watch her learn and grow during the day. After three hard days of partying, we called it a night at 9:30, and she was asleep about 6 minutes after we left.

Milestones

With so many challenging new experiences, Lydia has grown tremendously this summer. She is much taller, and bigger (I can't recall the numbers right now). She walks without falling except when tired, and can even run pretty well. She can interact and have (short) conversations, even talking on the phone a bit. Her hair is long enough to put up.



She loves routines, especially washing her hands and brushing her teeth (both of which she does mostly on her own). Helping in the kitchen is great fun, and she even helped us make us homemade vanilla pudding, and did all the stirring. She helps unload the dishwasher, and load it back up, and just generally helps her Mama around the house.

She has become so much more physically adept. She can go down a slide by herself, and loves to swing and play at the playground, and swimming is now rivaling swinging as her favorite activity (note in the list below, she knows both of these big words).


Lydia at Hawk Island Park near our house

She knows the names of all her parents and grandparents, and even some individual's names--if you're a dog or cat. But the biggest change of all has been the expansion of her vocabulary. Over the last three days, Cheryl and I have accumulated this list of her vocabulary which we're sure is not complete. These are words that she knows, not simply ones that she repeats. There are about 60 words on this list, and most of them she pronounces very well. In case it's not obvious, we're pretty proud of her.

She understands far more words, and also understands simple commands and sentences. She has yet to solidly use sentences, but can do pairs of words together.

Word : Lydia's Pronunciation
birdie : birdu
car : car-car
truck : truck-truck
dog : daw
kitty : (unspellable)
Mama : Mama
Dada : Daddy
Nana : Nana
Grandma : (unspellable)
Papa : Papa
Isabella : Bellu
Lena : Leena
Marley (neighbor's dog) : Mahnee
Phoebe (Nana's dog) : Fuebe
up : up
down : down
more : more
food : foo
please : pwee
no : no (a VERY popular word)
uh-oh : uh-oh
wow : wow!
flower : fwowa
book : buh
ball : baw
swinging : wineing
bottle : bottu
water : wabu/watu
wash : wahch
na-nite : na-nite
shh! : shh!
light: laiee
baby : baby
bear : bebe (not always consistent)
hi : hi
bye : bye
bye-bye : bye-bye
hello : hello
phone : foe
peas : peas
turtle : turtu
mmm! : mmm!
yum! : yum!
mine : mine
cheese : cheez
on : on
pacifier : batee
belly : bellu (same as cat)
eyes : eye
nose : nohs
mouth : mao
banana : bahnee
bubbles : bubble!
more : mah/moh
done : done
all done! : all done!
yogurt : gogur
shoes : shoe
spoon : poon
ice : eye
hot : hasch
cold : coal
keys : schee
swimming : (unspellable)

Finally! Lydia is starting to pull her own weight around this place.

Cheryl and I often tire of going through the effort of feeding ourselves. Who doesn't? The strain of lifting an entire arm just to place a bit of cookie or potato chip into the mouth can become exhausting. Especially by mid-bag.

Just our luck, though, because we've managed to train Lydia to feed us.

To start with, the food has to be something that she doesn't like, or otherwise just doesn't feel like eating right at that moment. But, since that can include just about anything, we're in luck.

As with any timesaving convenience, there are certain drawbacks. While partaking of the joys of food placed directly on the tongue, be prepared to also eat the occasional soggy piece, bit of fuzz, spoon, or pretty much anything else in a chubby little arm's reach.

But, with the proper precautions, you can get the food/fuzz ratio pretty high.

Also, it's best to take a moment and break the food into little pieces, because Lydia feeds at only one rate: as fast as she can.

Some quick jaw work and a knife, though, mean that rarely is your mouth so full that food actually sticks out.

So, with a little bit of smart preparation, the onerous task of self-nourishment can become a thing of the past!

The best part, though, for all you friends, relatives, and complete strangers, is that she's an equal opportunity servant.



Oh, and also she drops about every third bit, so wear a bib!

The last few weeks have been eventful ones in Lydia's life! After her big birthday party, she had a fever for a couple of days, so we brought her into the doctor's on Monday. Turns out she had two ear infections simultaneously. On top of that, she had a small eye infection, and I found out one morning as she was crying rather uncontrollably: two teeth coming in. And one was a big ol' molar. Within a few days, though, she was feeling much better thanks to some medicine and a few days at home with Mom and Dad.

The last two weeks were also her last at daycare, at least for the summer. Cheryl and I are now going to work our schedules so that we are home with Lydia full time. Cheryl's work is starting to wind down for the school year, so it'll only mean a few weeks of 6am-2pm work for me. That's not too bad. We'll miss her daycare, and I think Lydia will too.

A couple of days ago, we were walking into her room, and passed some baby cribs. The cribs have plexiglass walls on two of the sides, and Lydia looked and saw her friend Jax had just woke up. So, she walked (with me holding her hand) right up to his crib, smacked on the glass, and said "Hi" with a big smile on her face. She's also good friends with a girl named Nisha there. And we love her caregivers, all of them did a wonderful job with our little girl.

Which brings me to developments! Remember we said that two weeks ago she took her first three steps? Well, just this past Wednesday, one of the women at Lydia's daycare, Jean, said "So...is Lydia walking yet?" She was attempting to be fairly nonchalant about it. Since we hadn't mentioned Lydia was walking to them, she probably didn't want to tell us Lydia's first steps had been at daycare!

But I said, "Yeah, a couple of weeks ago."

"Oh, okay. Because today she took 8 steps in a row." Eight steps! "She would take a few steps, fall down, get right back up, and then take a few more."

"Wow, Lydia!" I congratulated her. "What a big girl!"

"And we were all cheering her on," Jean continued, "so she was clapping for herself and smiling every step she took."

Cheryl and I always clap for Lydia's accomplishments, big or little. When she learned how to sit on the edge of steps or chairs a few weeks back, she was so proud of herself that she still claps whenever she does it. And, when she manages something like balancing a ball carefully inside of a ring, she puts both hands up in the air, smiles, then claps for herself.

"That's just great, Lydia. I'm so proud of you for walking so much!" I told her. We hadn't seen Lydia walk that many steps, because so far she still preferred to crawl. Our record at home was four.

Within just a few days, she's started walking more and more. Now, her record is about 20 steps, which was from one end of her daycare classroom to the other. She still claps herself along, and smiles to outshine the sun. She's getting faster, too. Really, now she stands up and walks just to show off.

Another major development is her expanding vocabulary. She had a new word ready for balloons as soon as she came down on the morning of her birthday party. "Ball!" she said. The word definitely is spelled with an exclamation point. Here is a list of her complete vocabulary, with translations:

mama: mama
dada: dada
mmmm!: mmmm!
uh-oh!: uh-oh!
balloon/ball: ball!
hi: hi
bye: hi
on: on
off: off
light: on

We haven't heard her say this in a while, but she probably still could:
bottle: bahbah
kitty: kit-T
Kennedy (her cousin): ken-d-D

She knows many more words than she can say. For instance, last weekend we asked her to point to Grandpa's nose. She did, she pointed right at it! She then pointed to her nose, when asked, and mine as well. A couple of mornings ago she was standing next to a window and we asked her to point to her toes, so she bent right down and did it! I also think she might know ears and eyes, but I'm not positive there.

I'm sure that we'll discover many more things about our not-so-little girl in the next few weeks since we'll be spending much more time with her. We're both really excited about not having to share her with daycare anymore. Yesterday, on her last day it felt like the start of a vacation to me. I am so happy that we get to care for Lydia full time now, even though it'll mean more work for us.

Lydia turned one on Tuesday.  Anthony was out of town interviewing for a job, so I got to celebrate with her myself!  We went to A & W for hot dogs (one of Lydia's most favorite foods).  It was set up like a diner, so we got waited on which was really nice.  She had a fun time.

On Saturday, we are throwing her a party.  Basically, we just wanted to watch her dive into a piece of cake and we invited some people over to help eat the rest of the cake.  Her grandparents, great-grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins will be there.  Unfortunately, it isn't supposed to be very warm so we're not having it at the park like we hoped.  But it'll be fun nonetheless.

Well Lydia continues to make great strides in development - including real ones!  Today, just moments ago, Lydia took her very first steps.  3 of them.  From mama to dada outside on the sidewalk in front of our house.  She was pretty unsure about it, but then very proud of herself afterwards.  Soon, she'll be off without looking back.

Look out world!  Here comes Lydia!

One of the best things about this vacation for us has been watching Lydia experience new things. One of the next best things is that all of these new experiences keep our little girl busy so we can relax too! Today has been no exception, and it's not even over yet!

This morning, Lydia woke up right around 7:00 and started chatting to her Mama and I while we tried to get a few more winks. Upon hearing her talking, Kennedy knocked on the door and wanted to come in and play too. Soon, Jakob had joined us too. (There are lots of pictures in this post, so you may want to log in to Flickr if you're not already)



Once we all got around and slathered with sunscreen for another 85 degree sunny day, we headed to Anna Maria Island, a well-developed barrier island just minutes from the Edsons' condo. There, we went T-Shirt and jewelry shopping. Cheryl and I got new T-shirts, Lydia got a t-shirt and a new dress, and later Cheryl got some ankle bracelets. Here is Lydia in her new dress, with Kennedy in a matching one.



When lunchtime came around, we went to the nearby Moose Lodge. Cheryl's Mom's cousin Shirley is a member (Shirley and her husband Steve live down the street from Cheryl's folks here in Florida). The lodge itself was nothing special, but the view was spectacular.



The Lodge was nearly empty, the radio was pumping out some lame Oldies, and the dance floor beckoned. At least, it beckoned Lydia and her young cousins.



A member of the Lodge noticed us dancing and turned on the disco ball lights for us. Lydia was very impressed.



After lunch, we took a trolley to the north end of the island, and walked out on a pier to get some good pictures. Then, we stopped at an ice cream shoppe. I shared my bing cherry/black raspberry waffle cone with Lydia. Pretty quickly she figured out the whole thing, and took larger and larger bites.



Through all this, Lydia had missed a nap or two, so by the time we got back to the car she was nearly a zombie. She fell asleep faster than I could even pour some water into her bottle to mix up formula. Two hours later, she's still sleeping.

Tonight, Cheryl and I are headed out to a nice restaurant overlooking Tampa Bay and its gorgeous bridge. Lydia is staying home with Grandma and Grandpa. She'll have fun, though, her cousins are staying home too while Matt and Liz go out too.

Lydia really has had a wonderful time this week. So many positive things for her:

- having both parents around all day, every day
- having grandma and papa around every day
- having her cousins around every day, especially 3 yr old Kennedy
- being in warm temperatures
- being outside a lot
- trying new things, like walking barefoot on the beach
- eating real ('big girl') food all week

I'm sure I could add more to the list if I thought about it.

Every morning Lydia wakes up and chatters to us happily. When she sees Kennedy (honestly, her favorite cousin. See the picture below) she says her name. It sounds more like 'En-e-e' but she says it almost every time she sees her. She'll point and smile at her cousins, crawl to give them hugs, and follow them around the house to play.



Before we left, she had down right refused any food that came on a spoon (a.k.a. baby food) so this week we've fed her almost exclusively finger food. She's been eating good and is so proud of herself! The other day, she even ate some fried alligator (see the picture below)!



She's tried being in ocean water twice and really isn't too sure about it. But she loves being outside and even managed a nap in the shade during our 5-hour beach stay today.



As her previous entry indicates, Lydia is ready to move down here with her cousins and spend every day having fun with family! I hope she'll adjust back to life at home okay and forgive us for having to go back to work.

We're on vacation in Florida for a week, and Lydia wanted to tell everyone about it. If you want to see pictures, go here. Here's Lydia's entry:

Oh Goodness I have so much to tell you about my new house!

Yesterday I woke up for a bottle and mommy and daddy just kept me awake. It was kinda fun, but I was a bit sleepy. We all got ready for the day and left! I'm not sure where we went because I slept the whole way. When we got there, there were a bunch of cars everywhere and we got out of ours with a bunch of big bags. We all piled into a van and I got to sit on daddy's lap while it moved!

A little while later, we were going down a long hallway and got into a small room with lots of chairs. Again I got to sit with mommy and daddy and lots of people were sitting around us. Soon the room was moving - and fast! Then it felt like a elevator going way up high. I really liked it, sitting on mama's lap and looking out the window. Then there were some big white fluffy things for a while.

I played with mama and dada, walked up and down the room, made friends with people around me, and ate a cinnamon muffin. Then the room started feeling different again. I sat with mama again and watched the ground get closer and closer. We left the room and Grandma and Papa were there! I saw them for a few minutes, then I was sleeping again in my carseat. Now I'm in my new home (I think) and all my cousins are here!

I love being outside. We eat out there, go for walks, and even take baths {swim}. Today I felt something completely new! Dada tells me it's sand and something about a beach and ocean. It was a lot of fun. Dada played in the waves with me and my cousins were collecting seashells. I'm going to love living down here - I hope my crib gets here soon!!

During most weeks, Lydia takes only short naps at daycare--probably because there is always so much going on there and she doesn't want to miss out. Then, on Saturday she will sleep for almost four hours during the day to recover. This past weekend, she didn't get the chance though. So, this Monday morning, she fell asleep on her Mama's lap while drinking a bottle and has been sleeping for over 2 hours. It's a good day for it, gray, rainy, and warmer. Plus, both I and her Mama have colds that make us want to recover as well.

On Saturday, Lydia's cousins Makenzie, Kaleb, Jakob, and Kennedy came over, along with her uncle Matt and his girlfriend Liz. Lydia hadn't seen those guys since Christmas, and was very excited about it. She especially loved watching her youngest cousin Kennedy, who is about 3 1/2 years old. Lydia would laugh and point at Kennedy, and occasionally let out squeals of delight. The affection was definitely mutual, and the pair kept each other occupied for most of the afternoon.

Our guests stayed the night on Sunday, which tested our capacity of sleeping arrangements. The four cousins slept in the basement on air mattresses, Matt and Liz slept in our bedroom, and we slept on Lydia's floor on yet another air mattress. It actually worked pretty well, except for the fact that we've been trying to convert Lydia to milk-drinking, with vomit-limited success. After drinking a half-milk/half-formula bottle before bedtime, she apparently vomited sometime in the intervening couple of hours before we came to bed. The smell in her room was overpowering, and she was covered in it-hair, face, clothes, sheets, everything.

We carefully got her out of her clothes while she was still sleeping, and put her into a nice warm bath. Nevermind the fact that she normally loves her baths, an 11:00 puke-cleaning after 2 hours of sleep was not high on her list of fun activities. She sat there in the bath, slumped over, eyes barely open and crying piteously as I quickly but gently cleaned her off. Fifteen minutes later, all clean, dried, dressed, and drinking a warm bottle of formula, she managed to fall back asleep.

Sunday was just as exciting, and probably twice as stimulating for her. Lydia went with her Mama and cousin Makenzie to go see Jakob wrestling at the state tournament Sunday morning (Kaleb and Jakob, ages 7 and 5, both made it, but Kaleb didn't make it to the second day of the tournament on Sunday). Wrestling tournaments are held in large, open gymnasiums with lots of simultaneous matches all accompanied by screaming fans and parents. In this case, the gym was the one in Jenison Fieldhouse on MSU's campus, and there were 26 simultaneous matches. The sound was just deafening. With everything to see and hear, Lydia spent most of the time just looking around trying to take everything in.

After lunch at Steak and Shake, Cheryl tried to get her to sleep but failed for about 3 hours. Finally, they both came over to our flip condo down the street and watched her grandma and grandpa Kendall and I work on installing a laminate floor. Below is a picture of her watching attentively as her grandpa did some measuring for the next saw cut. The second one is fairly self-explanatory (as usual, if you can't see the pictures, just log in to Flickr and come back--assuming you're already one of my contacts, if not, send me an email and I can set it up quickly).





She stayed there for another 2 hours, stubbornly refusing to do any sort of napping. This morning, after a nice 11 hours of sleep, she's still going strong, though. It's now been 2.5 hours and she's still snoring away on the couch.

Since going to Impression 5 museum a couple of weeks ago, I've been working hard with Lydia to show her how to walk. She has improved tremendously since then. Now, I hold her hands and she does almost all of the walking. Along with that, she now "cruises" along furniture quite quickly, and even stands up independently with no support (she did it three times yesterday!).

But getting her to continue to improve at walking has been difficult because we haven't really been able to demonstrate that it holds advantages over crawling. After all, some of the coolest things she does, like going through long tunnels at the local YMCA with her cousin Kendall, or getting up and down stairs, involve crawling.

So yesterday we tried a new game. Both Cheryl and I sat, legs apart, maybe five feet away from each other and tried to pass Lydia back and forth between. We held her hands and had her walk while the other parent tried to make it sound as if coming over would be the coolest thing ever. She was fairly convinced by that, actually. So convinced that she'd sit down and crawl right over to see what was so great!

A while back, we bought Lydia a neat plush soccer ball that's almost full size from IKEA. We've used it with her just to roll around and show her how that works. She's pretty good and can almost always get the ball back to you--which is an accomplishment in and of itself. She and I were playing that yesterday when I thought, "Why not play soccer for real?" I stood her up, put the ball in front of her, and moved her leg to show her how kicking works.

At first she was a bit puzzled, but we walked after it, and kicked it again. Within two more tries, she cracked up giggling and laughing every time she kicked it, and was nearly running after the ball to kick it again. We went around our dining room table once, and then from one end of the dining room through the living room--and back--twice.

She really was very good it at right from the start. She's definitely right-footed, and managed to kick it forward without my help just about every time. And this wasn't just an unintended kick as her foot walked forward. She would stand, legs nearly together, then kick forward, then put her foot back where it was, and then walk after it.

Now, I'd love to say that I'm excited to see a little soccer star in the making, but I'm not going to be one of those pushy parents who forces their kids into a sport just because they have fond memories of the same. No, I'm just happy I found something that seems to really motivate her to get up and walk!


Just as a small update, we weighed and measured Lydia yesterday. She's at least 28" tall (it was hard to measure her because she'd look up at the straight edge we were using to get her height) and about 23.5 lbs. This puts her just about the 50th percentile in height, and something around the 75th in weight. So, she's still bigger-than-average, but not as much as she used to be.

And another update on her words. Her vocabulary now includes: "kitty", "mama", "dada", something that sounds like "baba" for bottle, "up" which means stairs, "off" which means lightswitch, and "uh-oh" which means that Grandpa and Grandma taught her a pesky game of throwing things on the floor.

This week started off really well. Free of the teething pains from a couple of weeks ago, and pretty much clear of any colds, Lydia was happy and smiling. I (Anthony/Dada) got a call at work on Monday from her daycare saying that she had a few spots on her that qualified as an "unidentified rash", and would have to go home. So, I left work early and came home at about 2:15.

We took advantage of the afternoon together and went to the First Impression room at our local science museum, Impression 5. The room is pretty cool, it has a play place for infants, a playset with two different slides, and all kinds of great toys to eat play with. She just loved the slides (if some of the photos don't work for you, try logging into to Flickr).



When we got kicked out of the museum because they were closing, I decided that I wanted to go get some tea. Plus, it was time for Lydia's bottle. So, we headed over to the Cornerstone Coffee shop in East Lansing. There, Lydia fell asleep after drinking a bottle sitting in front of a nice warm fire.



Cheryl joined us when she got out of work a few minutes after Lydia fell asleep. While she slept, her Mama and Dada had a good time talking. But, when she woke up something just hadn't gone right, and we practically ran out of the place carrying an upset baby.

On Tuesday morning, Lydia still couldn't go to school because she either needed a doctor's note (which would require a visit that seemed excessive for a few spots on her skin) or a 24-hour waiting period. So, she got to play hooky for another day! This time, she went shopping with Mama, visited Dada at work for lunch, and then went with both of us to the Meridian Mall play area in Okemos. She loved crawling around on the padded floor and playing with other kids. But, as the day before, the slide was her favorite (check out the 6 teeth).



After that, and a long afternoon nap, we went out with our friends Aaron, Naomi, and Kyle to India Palace. There, they play Bollywood movies on large TV screens, which fascinated Lydia. Also, we were the only ones in the restaurant (it's spring break in East Lansing) so she got to crawl around the floor and have a grand time while we ate. After that, Kyle took us on a private tour of the Cyclotron at MSU where he is a graduate student. We got to see cool machines like this (thanks Flickr user Paul Pellerito for the next two photos):



that were in awesome industrial-looking areas filled with these signs (but who pays attention to signs anyway?):



Our tour finished at 9:45, WAAAY past Lydia's bedtime. But she had been alert and happy the entire time. Minutes after setting her into her (now front-facing) carseat, she was out. She didn't wake up until 4:00 AM.

When she did wake up, her head was warm, but I thought maybe it was just because she hadn't had much to drink. When she woke up again at 8:00 on Wednesday morning, she was still warm, and running a fever of 100.5. Another day at home! Well, maybe not so exciting, this one. She slept at least 4 hours that day while Cheryl and I tag-teamed skipping work to take care of her.

By Thursday morning, she was feeling much better, and had a great time at music class--as usual. Since then, things have been much more normal around here, and Cheryl and I managed to pull out a little more than 1/2 week of work each.