Oh, Lydia. Six years with you and we truly couldn't be happier.
Official Stats: 44 lbs, 44.6 inches
Unofficial Stats: Hasn't lost any of her baby teeth, although she's insistent that it's going to happen soon. Size 6 clothes, size 13 shoes.
-She loves to roller skate. She got skates last Christmas, a year and a half ago, and she's been practicing in the basement ever since. But we took her to classic skating for the Fox Hollow PTA night and it was basically the best night of her life. Anyone who sees her is always impressed at how well she skates, and she just loves it so much.
-She says that she wants to grow her hair long like Rapunzel, and that she doesn't want a hair cut for six months. But then I tell her that we'd have to wash and comb her hair even more often and she always changes her mind. She does not like washing her hair.
-She's super creative and super pursuasive. She comes up with ideas and is very convincing when enlisting help to fulfill them, from making a parachute for a toy using an old sucker wrapper and a spare bit of string, or getting her grandma to help her make a turkey out of roll dough.
(Sidenote: she's got the best grandparents!)
-She loves her little brothers. Austin is her best little buddy and they play all the time, and she basically adores everything about Caleb. I can't imagine a better big sister for my boys.
These pictures of Lydia and Austin might be my favorite, ever. I feel like they capture their sibling bond so perfectly. Silly and sweet all at the same time.
-Lyda's started really loving to play games. She loves playing Uno with David and also really likes Candy Land.
-She's learning to really write and it's amazing!
-I had to include these pictures. We came down one morning and turned on the Christmas tree lights. I was bustling around working on getting breakfast ready and such, and I looked over and saw these two sitting right next to each other looking up at the Christmas tree. These photos are not staged. I feel like they perfectly captured the feelings in our home this Christmas season and I'm so grateful I was able to catch them. The way that Caleb is looking up adoringly at Lydia and the way they both are so entranced with the Christmas tree? It's just... magical.
\
-Lydia has started really loving to do special things with David, like eat at McDonalds or some other random but so-special-to-a-five-year-old activity.
-We started a new "Family Economy" and it's been great. The kids have four items to mark off their list: "Morning", "Afternoon", "Zones", and "Reading." Lydia's assigned zone is making sure that the living room is picked up every day. I've been SO so impressed with how well she's been able to really step up and do her "Family Economy" each day. She keeps that living room super clean, and has been great at doing the rest of her chores. She earns $5 a week (her age), and after she pays her tithing (10%), and her savings (30%), she gets $3 to spend on whatever she wants! She's bought a bunch of things, mostly candy, but she has also worked really hard to save her money to buy a special walking dog . I'm proud of her.
-She really loves art and spends a good portion of her wind-down time at night drawing. One of my favorite things that she started doing all on her own was that she'd draw dots randomly all over the paper, then use lines to connect the dots and color in each box with different colors. So creative.
Other creative things: A puppet show! A play sand castle. Building lots and lots and lots of things with Duplos.
-Okay, I just have to say this. Lydia has serious hoarding tendencies. She absolutely loses her mind if she discovers that I'm throwing/giving something away. We're talking: if I give a cardboard box to a neighbor she starts to cry or if I start walking to throw a piece of broken plastic away she exclaims that she needs that! and that she's going to use it for a project! The only way that I've found around this is to tell her that we can take a picture of her with it so that we won't ever forget it. It's kind of ridiculous, but it totally works, and so I will take pictures of her with our junk for the rest of forever if it helps everyone feel better. (But really, this is such a funny quirk of hers.)
-She also asks us to take pictures of her with her food before she can eat it. It's almost the opposite of "fear of missing out", it's like "fear that if I don't document this, it won't be remembered, and that would break my heart." As I'm typing this, I'm wondering if she picks that up from me. I try to be very careful to just snap a few pictures here and there and to spend most of my time in the moment, but I wonder if my desire to document things is shifting down to her, but the things that she cares about and thinks are important are different than the things that I think about. I hope I can teach her healthy boundaries with cameras and social media - but for now I'll take pictures with her and her cloud-shaped pancakes whenever she asks
-Taking care of her baby:
-My Grandma Knowles came to attend Brooklyn's BFA art presentation/show and she and Lydia snuck away for a little while to go look at some of the other art on display and I'm so glad that I captured the moment because it was so sweet. Lydia loved the art show and on the way home she was so excited to tell us that Brooklyn is going to teach her how to draw!
-Lydia overheard David and I talking about an upcoming opportunity to clean the temple and she was so excited and started begging to be able to come. We tried to explain why she couldn't come, then stopped and told her that if she wanted we could go to the temple grounds for FHE and pick up garbage (which is seriously one of her favorite things). We had a little lesson in the grass, ate cookies, then gave them grocery sacks to pick up all the garbage, which there was almost none of. I think they found one tiny torn piece of paper and maybe half a starburst wrapper - both from the parking lot outside the temple grounds. They didn't care. They were thrilled and we were glad to hopefully teach them a tiny bit about serving at the temple and how special that is.
-
-Lydia loves dogs. She wants a dog SO bad. Like, SO so so bad. Poor thing, because that is never going to happen. Now if you ask her what she wants to be when she grows up, she says, "A mom, and a vet, and a dog-owner. A vet because I love dogs, and a dog-owner because I love dogs!" The Mom part of that makes my heart happy, and the other parts make me laugh. I have no doubt that someday she'll own a dog. And until then, we'll play with Riley the Dog anytime we can and hopefully that will appease her. (She also calls Amy Perkins, Riley's Mom, which is darling. And she used her own money to buy Riley a toy for Riley's birthday.)
-She's learning that she has a mind of her own and sometimes I get frustrated when she doesn't do what I want her to do exactly when I want her to do it. She pushes boundaries and blatantly tells me "no - I'm never going to do what you want me to do again". I try to stay calm, and I wish I was better because I do want her to grow into a strong, courageous, capable woman. I feel like she deserves the best mother in the whole world and that I'm just a fraction of that - but I hope that she knows that I love her. I hope that tonight, this very night that as she sleeps I am thinking about her and how much I love her. And I hope that in 5 years, and 10 years, and 20 years, she never ever doubts that her mother loves her so incredibly much. A fierce, swells up in my chest and threatens to burst, kind of love.
She also spends a good amount of time pretending to be a puppy. Puppy-Lydia communicates, surprisingly very effectively, with barks, whimpers, yips, and other dog noises. And if you give her puppy-treats (i.e. candy) she's thrilled.
-She chose to do a "Snowshoe Hare" for her Kindergarten Diorama, and that morning she asked me if I would do a "Snowshow Hare-style" for her hair. My goodness, I love this girl.
Other pictures that I love:
-I asked David if there was anything that he wanted to add to the blog post about Lydia at this age and he said "Just that I'm impressed that she can really read books and stuff. And that I love her a lot."
Lydia Elise. You are stubborn, opinionated, and you run out of the house every single time the front door opens (just like a puppy). You are also kind-hearted, smart, a hard worker, a good-sharer, and a creative-thinker. You forgive easily, you love in a big way, and you care about the people around you. You make me so proud to be your mother, and you make me want to be a better mother every day. I will always treasure this special relationship that I have with you. I promise.
We love you, Lydia!
No comments:
Post a Comment