Life with Lydia

Over the last few days, Lydia has been making forts in the living room. She made one again today, only this time she used it as a safe place. She was watching a Curious George episode that she’s seen before and screamed and hid in her fort when she knew the scary part (the dinosaur part) was coming up. As soon as the scene was over, she came out again all smiles. Interestingly, she’s also started hiding her eyes behind her hands recently. I guess that’s just an innate human reaction since she’s not been taught this reaction (that I know of).

We went to art class again today, and, as usual, Lydia was totally into the art. She was, once again, extremely focused and the last kid working on her piece during both phases of the art project.

The teacher read “Llama, Llama, Red Pajama” which is a super cute book. Then the kids painted a quilt and collaged a llama over it. Lydia made a fantastic moody, dramatic, almost-cubist version. She always gets to make her own artistic decisions, and the results are super cool. See for yourself.

This morning we went to crafting class again. When I told Lydia we were going, she got her baby, put her in the baby backpack, and headed toward the door. She LOVES crafting class. She always insists on taking a backpack to school, as she knows that’s just how it works. She hangs her backpack up on the hook as soon as we get to school. Lydia loves rules and organization (wonder where she got that from), and this is one way it manifests itself. She makes me so proud. (One day we’ll be labeling things together with the P-Touch, I’m sure.)

Today she made a purple octopus. She got to pick either purple or green. I always let her craft all on her own (unlike other kids who receive exhaustive instruction and correction with mommy making/fixing most of it). They created their octopi in two phases, and she spent about 5 minutes more than any of the other kid finishing each phase. I love the eyes and mouth on her octopus. When we got home, she picked a place to hang it in her room (as she didn’t want to hang it where I suggested), and she even kissed him. She’s super proud of her octopus and so are we.

The last two weeks have been full of fun and family. First we were in Florida visiting for about a week. Then we had lots of family visiting in Atlanta with us for about a week. We had my parents, my sis and her hubby, my aunt, my uncles, and my cousins in town. Unlike her usual first meetings, Lydia instantly took to my uncles (tio Pepe and tio Juan) from Ecuador whom she’d never met. Lydia has really enjoyed spending time with so much family, as have we. Here’s a pic of Lydia and Mom at the Georgia Aquarium.

I think Daddy’s been watching too much World Cup. He’s started using soccer ref signs to communicate with Lydia.

Yesterday Lydia was playing with her minivan and people, as she often does. She was trying to fill it full of people but couldn’t fill it to her satisfaction. She started looking around, and Paul asked her what she was looking for. She said she was looking for “bodies”. She wanted “some body” to put in the minivan. So cute! It’s fun to watch kids learn language and see the connections that they make that we’ve been missing all these years.

Lydia played in the sprinkler today and had some good, old-fashioned Florida fun. She was a bit tentative about the “rain” at first but quickly got into it. She had a ball.

Lydia spent this morning with Nana, Feve, and her cousin, Gabriel. She had lots of fun! She and Gabe played in the baby pool for quite some time. She even got to feed Gabe his bottle and cereal! She’s a sweet older cousin.

We went to the beach this morning and Lydia LOVED it! She’s been wanting to go ever since she watched a beach episode of Curious George.

Lydia played in the ocean a bit but was unnerved by the waves. She much preferred playing in a large natural pool area that was in the beach. She “swam”, played in the sand, collected shells, and chased birds. We’ll have to go again this week if the weather cooperates.