Category: Lydia

The weekend without the child

My wife and I haven’t been away alone together in over five years. This correlates nicely with the age of our progeny. (This is not to say that Lydia’s never been away from both of us; last summer, while Carol was in college, I dropped her off at Grandma and Grandpa’s in Oneonta, about 75 miles away, so I wasn’t the position of both taking her to day care and picking her out.)

But the wife and I alone together for more than a few hours? Doesn’t happen. Yet our tenth wedding anniversary is coming up next month. Taking off time during the school year is tough, and the summer will be pretty packed, too. This past week, on the other hand, school was off.

So my parents-in-law kindly drove up the hour and a quarter to watch Lydia Thursday afternoon while Carol and I took a vacation in Saratoga Springs. Saratoga? Isn’t that only about 30 miles away from Albany? Indeed it is. but we stayed at an inn, and visited places we’d never been before. You know how people in Manhattan never go to the top of the Empire State building unless they’re hauling in relatives from out of town? It’s pretty much the same thing.

It was near enough that the trip there and back wouldn’t be onerous, but unfamiliar enough to be able to explore.

I’ll undoubtedly discuss the specific aspects of the trip over the next few weeks, but let me give you some first impressions:

*We end up watching either the Today show or Good Morning America only when we’re off work. saw Today on Friday, GMA on Sunday. What depressing shows. No wonder people tune out the news.
*We ate too much.
*We’ve become near experts at getting around Saratoga.
*We worried that the child would miss us. we called Thursday night and she talked to us, but when we called Friday night, she was too busy watching TV to pick up. (That is NOT a complaint.) However, she (with Grandma’s help) called us Saturday morning.
*She has so many things that getting Lydia yet something else seemed undesirable. Ultimately, we opted for flipflops.
*The hotel allegedly had a public computer, but the two times I actually had time to use it, it died after 16 minutes one times and 20 minutes the other. So no, I haven’t read any of your blogs lately; I will, I will, eventually.
*The times I did get on my e-mail, I got e-mails from a friend of a friend of Raoul Vezina’s and my high school history teacher, both of whom came across me through this blog.

Ah, my wife needs to use the computer. Bye for now.

ROG

ROG

The Lydster, Part 60: Lydia is Five


Gordon also asked: “How’s the Lydster?”

Well, her birthday is today. I wrote a letter to our Bradley birth instructor this week indicating how important that childhood education was for us. (The birth story, BTW, is here.)

We’re planning her birthday party. This will be her first one that wasn’t ice cream and cake with the family. Meanwhile, she’s been to LOTS of fancier gigs of her friends. It’s not a matter of competition, but on the other hand, this one at least, we thought we’d do something at the local museum.

The invitations have turned out to ber more of a chore than we thought. She wants to invite her old friends from day care, some of whom we have no contact info. Meanwhile, she’s decided that she doesn’t want to invite a couple of her new friends because they recently took her stuffed animal without permission. Her mother suggested that she just not bring the stuffed animal; I say that she’s got to speak up when that happens and complain to them and, if necessary, to her teachers. Someone told me kids don’t hold a grudge; I’m not convinced that’s true with mine.

I was tentatively pleased about the news on the peanut butter allergy front. It’d be nice if, one day, she had one less allergy, since it’s about time for the daily sprays to deal with her pollen allergies.

There’s a working dog on our bus every morning. She’s gone from making sure that I’m between her and the canine to hurrying past it; this is progress.

There’s an open house in Albany for kids entering kindergarten this weekend, with registration starting on Monday. Someone suggested that this will make life easier; I’m not convinced. Since we live in walking distance of her school, I’m still not sure how I get her to school and get to work on time. (And by “on time” I’d settle for within a half hour, as opposed to 2.5 hours.) The buses run infrequently to Corporate (frickin’) Woods, and kindergarten starts late – 8:45 a.m. Don’t know how other parents who both work outside the home deal with this stuff.

Lydia is either going to take her first train ride or first plane ride this year; I haven’t decided.

Any specific questions?

ROG

ROG

The Lydster, Part 59: Miss Independence


My great joy recently has been the fact that Lydia wants to dress herself lately. She’s had the means before but not the inclination, leaving it up to Daddy to put her clothes on. She HAS, for some time, picked out her clothing, and I must say that she generally does a pretty good job coordinating her outfit, a skill she must have learned from her mother, not me. In fact, the only times I’ve ever vetoed her selection is if it is going to be too warm or, more recently, not warm enough.

I’m also pleased that she hads deigned to pick the top pair of underwear in her drawer rather than rumaging around to find underpants that match her outer outfit. After all, people are not going to SEE her undergarments, are they?

This is not to say that she doesn’t need help with some things. When her clothes are washed inside out and remain that way when they go to the drawer, she needs assistance. And some buttons are still tricky.

But for the most part, it’s “Daddy, go away! I can dress myself!” And that’s fine with me; actually gives me a chance to check my e-0mail in the morning.
***
She has had a tough week, though. On Monday, she fell on the ice in front of our own house. The snow had melted, and it tends to gravitate to the sidewalk. Then it got cold and the water turned to black ice. She didn’t cry, but she was sore.

Then last night, she did cry after falling off the stool she uses to brush her teeth. Coincidentally, I had to use ice to tend to her almost-immediately visible bruise.

Careful, Lydia.

ROG

ROG

D is for Dogs

When I was growing up, we were not a dog-owning family; we were cat people, mostly because of space. Dogs need to have more legroom than our tiny yard could afford.

We did have one dog, though, an Alaskan husky called Lucky Stubbs. He was a good dog, but prone to nipping people. It was OK when he nipped me, but when he nipped one of the minister’s daughters, that was it. He ended up on a nearby farm.

I like dogs OK, but they don’t seem to like me. I used to ride my bicycle down Avon Road in Binghamton, NY. Not a dog in sight. Next thing I knew I was surrounded by barking canines. The only thing to do was to stop and walk. (Avon, BTW, was a dead-end street that ran to the river; there was no alternate route.)

I’ve had similar experiences around Albany, and once in Jamestown, NY where this Irish setter about the size of a small Shetland pony bounded across a field to harass me. I certainly couldn’t outrun him, so I stopped, started walking with my bike until he felt that his turf was safe, then went back to riding. I know some people use various dog repellents, but I am disinclined.

Unfortunately, my daughter seems to be canine wary. Frankly, this surprises me. Her first daycare, which she went to from age 6 months to 16 months, had an obnoxious daschund who barked all of the time, and she seemed unfazed. Yet, for a couple years, any dog nearby sent her into the arms of a parent. During the worst phase of this, I visited a friend in Rhode Island, who was convinced that a weekend with his very nice old dog would cure her of her fears. Instead, she spent the week at home all jumpy and clingy.

When we used to walk around the block, a pair of dachshunds would come and bark at us. Despite being behind a fence, they were a bit much to listen to. (I heard at a party this weekend that, due to the unmelted snow, they can now bark with their heads OVER fence. Great, just great…)

The daughter’s fear has morphed into merely not wanting to be in a direct line with a dog. When we get on the bus and she doesn’t immediately run to the back of the bus to sit down, I know there must be a guide dog on board. She’s OK as long as I am between her and the animal.

And there is ONE dog she actually likes, an old setter down the street named Lucy. So I hold out hope that one day, she’ll be OK with the Rovers of the world.

ROG

ROG

The Lydster, Part 58: American Idol


For the record, Lydia’s first pop concert was Saturday, December 27, 2008 at 3 p.m., featuring American Idol season 6 finalists Blake Lewis, Chris Sligh, and Brandon Rogers, at the Palace Theatre in Albany, NY.

I should note that neither of us had ever seen one minute of season 6 of American Idol, thought I had seen parts of the first five seasons. I think the victory of Taylor Hicks, plus the general meanness factor of the show just turned both my wife (the initial cheerleader for watching Idol) and me off.

Thus, I had no real idea about any of these guys. First up was brief plugs by the sponsors of the show, people apparently not used to being on stage or using a microphone.

Next, Brandon Rogers. I expect the order of their appearance was in reverse order of their results on Idol and I was right. Rogers, who noted that his step-grandmother was from Schenectady, was the first of the Final 12 to be eliminated. He was personable and talented. (In fact, Sligh later said he was surprised how early he had left the competition.) The best performance he played on keyboards about the pain of his injury after Idol and being unable to participate in the post-Idol rush. He also did two breakup pieces. Mostly he sang to a backing track. Altogether he performed seven songs, five of them originals, plus Stevie Wonder’s Superstition. All but the last song, a cover about New Years Eve, were sung well; the final tune was a little, er, pitchy.

Lydia approved. She was dancing around wildly on the uptempo sounds, running up the aisle in front of me and down the one behind me with excitement. We sat far enough back that it should not have impinged on the enjoyment of others.

Chris Sligh, eliminated in the third week of the finals, did only four songs, three on guitar, and the middle of those a silly little ditty about rock stars needing money, after which he plugged his album for sale in the back. He was introduced verbatim from the flier with “it takes a lot to stand out from the cookie-cutter crowd”. Unfortunately, I didn’t get a sense of that from the short set, which ended with him on the keyboards singing a song to his wife of nearly six years, and emphasizing that at nearly 31, he still feels like a kid.

Lydia enjoyed him well enough, especially the silly song.

So BOTH of these guys fell before the infamous Sanjaya Malakar? Interesting. One didn’t need to actually watch Idol to know about Sanjaya.

Finally, there was Blake Lewis, the runner-up to Jordin Sparks. Evidently, he was used to working with cordless equipment because he was having all sorts of difficulties getting set up from song to song. Actually, the first piece wasn’t a song at all, but him playing around on his famous (or infamous) beatbox. It was interesting, for a while, but both Lydia and I got bored. During his second real song, U2’s With or Without You, he layered a bunch of vocals on the system; unfortunately, one or two of them were just a tad flat, so mixing them in a chord made for me an unpleasant experience. Meanwhile, Lydia made the final decision to go, because it was TOO LOUD.

So, in review, Lydia liked it less and less as it went along. Actually, I concurred with her.

ROG

ROG
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