Tag: Lydia

The Lydster, Part 79: Lost & Found; and Just in Time

My job on weekday mornings is to get Lydia to school on time.


My daughter has an innate capacity to find things that I have misplaced. There was a key, the TV remote, all sorts of things. She’s less skilled finding things SHE loses, such as the DVD remote, which she actually DID come across, after four weeks; it was in her art supply box, and I know I didn’t put it there. She also thought it would be fun to hide the mailbox key that hung on a hook near the front door, but doesn’t know where she left it; now I can’t get the mail until the Wife gets home with the only other key.

Note to Wife: PLEASE get another key made, as it’s been three months now and the key is unlikely at this point just to “turn up.”

One of the things I really hate is being late when there are real consequences. For instance, I hate rushing to an airport, train station, or bus depot to try to get on transportation at the last minute. My job on weekday mornings is to get Lydia to school on time, which is 8:03. Now we live a stone’s throw from the school; this is not cliche, this is the fact that I could stand on my front porch with a stone, toss it, and hit the school building. Well, maybe, I haven’t actually tried it. An MLB baseball outfielder or an NFL football quarterback could surely strike it. But it still takes some time to get the coat on, get the backpack on, lock the door, walk a couple of houses, cross the street and walk most of the length of the building to the entrance.

So when we left the house at 7:59 twice last week, it is cutting it way too close for my tastes. To be fair, the second time was Friday, and she had homework to finish, plus her mom forgot to give her some medicine the night before. But she does tend to procrastinate as well. Sooner or later, when she finally is late, when it takes a little bit too long to cross our busy street, even with the crossing guard there, she’ll figure it out. Meanwhile, it’s only my anxiety, not hers.

Congrats to Darrin & Suzy on the birth of Sylvie Grace; the name Sylvie immediately reminded me of this song. I e-mailed this post to Darrin, and he said, “She’ll be having my dozens of dollars!”

The Lydster, Part 78: Unicorn’s Sister

Looking at 50-year-old women, who are presumably finished having children, 18.3% of them had a single child in 2006, up from 11.4% in 1990.


The daughter is an only child. The daughter has a couple of dozen brothers and sisters. She has a number of stuffed animals and dolls who are in an ever-changing, and to me, an incomprehensible hierarchy of relationships vis a vis her. Some are now dolls of her siblings, for instance; please don’t ask me which are which.

I DO know, however, that her number one sibling is her sister Unicorn. She has three or four other unicorns that have names that aren’t Unicorn; I forget what they are. It was she – Lydia, not Unicorn, at least I think so – who decided that they should wear matching outfits when they played in their band. The keyboards, which I have had for decades, can be programmed to play some tunes, and it has an annoying automatic tune as well.

Sometimes, I feel marginally guilty, for her sake, having just one (human) child, but she seems to have adapted. She has friends at church and school, she LOVES her cousins who live an hour away (and the ones that live further, as well.) In any case, it is what it is, and we’re not going to be changing it.

Here’s an interesting article: A Dose of Sibling Rivalry: For Only Child Families, New Thinking Pushes Kid-Time, Sharing and Squabbling AUGUST 10, 2010 Wall Street Journal.
“Looking at 50-year-old women, who are presumably finished having children, 18.3% of them had a single child in 2006, up from 11.4% in 1990, according to numbers from the National Center for Health Statistics. The growth is being spurred by more later-in-life marriage and child-bearing. Financial concerns are also at play. As the cost of diapers, child-care, and college degrees keep their steady march northward, some parents are deciding it’s just too expensive to have that second kid.”

 

The Lydster, Part 77: Dancing Queen

Lydia is the house choreographer.


As I may have mentioned, Lydia has been taking ballet lessons once a week since October 2009. It was almost inevitable, since, in the year or two before that, she would move around the room so gracefully and deliberately that people kept asking, “Is she taking dance lessons?”

This was NOT anything that we pushed her into doing, but rather something she asked to do a few times before we relented. While I’m not anticipating her become a prima ballerina, it has instilled in her a sense of confidence she had been lacking.

It has also made Angelina Ballerina on PBS her favorite TV program.

Her school did a recital in June – this was Lydia’s costume – and she said she was nervous, though she didn’t appear to be so.

Now, she is the choreographer at home; not only does she design the moves, but she also selects the music, quite well, I think. Her mother has become her primary dance partner, with her stuffed animals and me as her captive audience.

The Lydster, Part 76: Elgar, and Everything

The Daughter “graduated” from kindergarten to first grade in June. Was there any doubt? Actually, if she had missed more than 28 days, there was this threat, and she did miss nine days in one marking period in the fall, for a total of 15 overall.

It was a refreshingly short event, 26 minutes, starting with the kids marching out on stage, yes, to a recording of Pomp and Circumstance, and sitting in chairs. We watched a video of their year, the kids sang two songs, then each child’s name was called, and the kid stood in place. Finally, they got to meet the first-grade teachers. Afterward, there were opportunities for pictures with their teachers in the other gym, with some punch and amazingly good cookies from a local bakery that was peanut-free, important for Lydia. Oh, the caps and gowns are drycleaned then reused.

At the ceremony, some of the younger parents were crying for joy. Really? It’s KINDERGARTEN.

Maybe it’s because she now has had as many graduation events (three, including two from daycare!) as I did (high school, college, grad school) that I was disinclined to get all teary-eyed about it.

She has the summer off, as does The Wife. Mondays, they tend to do chores together, scheduling medical appointments and the like. Tuesdays and Thursdays, Lydia goes to a program at her old daycare. Wednesdays, she takes ballet. And Friday, mother and daughter do something fun together.

The exception to this was Friday, July 16, when I took off from work so that Carol could do whatever she wants on the day after her birthday. Lydia and I went to the state museum, played in the Discovery area, rode the carousel twice, and had what has turned out to be “our” sandwich, a Subway footlong meatball sub on wheat bread; she only likes cheese on her half, but I get spinach, onion, and tomato on my part.

We’re still trying to get Lydia to do some reading and writing exercises; don’t want her to forget EVERYTHING she learned in kindergarten.

The Lydster, Part 75: Tiger, Tiger, Burning Bright

A happy, ferocious feline


Ah, found pictures! Last summer, I took Lydia to some jazz music festival at the Hudson River Riverfront in Albany. Don’t much remember the music – I liked it, she, not so much – because the daughter was getting antsy. So we wandered through the vendor area and got something to eat.

Then we came across a booth for face painting. And it cost only one dollar. These pictures don’t do the artistry justice.

We walked throughout the area, and people, unbidden kept asking, “Where did you get that done?” Quite unintentionally, we became great ambassadors for the booth.

Afterwards, we took the bus home, and she was definitely the A-topic on the vehicle.

It was too bad when she had to take off the makeup before bed.

So I want to thank the talented woman who brought a lot of happiness Lydia’s way for the day.

***
The William Blake poem, Tyger Tyger Burning Bright

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