Life with Lydia

Lydia has learned to push buttons, literal ones. She learned yesterday in the car as we were driving to Synaxis for a short visit. Half way through the trip I started hearing ding dong, ding dong, ding dong… It was Lydia in the back with one if her new books, the kind with buttons on the side that make sounds. She’d finally figured out how to push the buttons and was enjoying her new skill over and over and over. Normally one might get annoyed by the noise, but not this time. I knew she’d learned something new.

A few more pix from Christmas.

Becky, John, Kadi, Sage, and Clay were up visiting just after Christmas. One of the fun things we did while they were here was go on a picnic and hike at Arabia Mountain (about 30 minutes away). It’s one of our favorite places to visit nearby, and it was the hike we took last year on Christmas day (while I was pregnant). That made it fun to go back a year later almost to the day..

It also happened to be Lydia’s first picnic and hike. And she loved it. She had to do a bit of hiking on her own before falling asleep in my arms for the rest of the trip. It was wonderful to get out and walk in the woods on a crisp day. I know we’ll be doing this again.

Lydia started bopping her head in time with music a few days ago, any music. She’s been bopping her head and dancing (moving her arms) for a while but now the bopping is on beat.

The funniest is when she bops to the intersticial music on NPR. We don’t even hear it anymore until we see Lydia bopping. She loves anything with a strong beat like funk, pop, or house-like music. Maybe she’ll be a drummer when she grows up.

It seems like over the last week Lydia says something new every day. So far she says Grandma (something like namna or gama), hello (I’ve not heard this but others have), Claude (cl), water (wawa), bye bye daddy (ba ba dada) and this morning ay ay ay (just like that). Sometimes she also nods “yes”. She’s turned into a little parrot. Wonder what else she’ll say before she’s 10 months old?

I was taking off her sweater and stopped when I got this.

Now that Lydia got the green light to eat almost anything, she’s enjoying big people food quite a lot. This evening she had mashed potatoes and more. Since she only fed herself, her preferred eating method, by the end of the meal she had potatoes from head to toe. The best part was that she gave herself a new dinner do with potatoes.

As Lydia gets older (like she’s sooo old) we get to see more and more of her personality. Recently I’ve learned that she’s very social and not at all shy. (She gets that from daddy, I’m sure.) She loves people and interacting with them.

Last week we had three holiday parties and Lyds was a champ party-goer at all. The first was one my friend Anne threw while she was in town visiting. It was great to see everyone and super fun to see Lydie interact with little people her age. There was Sam (4), Sarah (2.5), and Luke (1). Lydia loved them all and had fun interacting and sharing toys. She loved it so much I need to find more frequent opportunities for her to do so.

Her first of many, I’m sure. On Christmas day.

Today is Christmas, and it’s Lydia’s first! Merry Christmas everyone!

We’ve had a great morning so far. We started with an adventurous breakfast at Waffle House, followed by Lydia’s breakfast at home, and finally the opening of the gifts. We put all the gifts on a pile in the middle of the floor, and Lydia had a great time touching everything, tearing (and eating) paper, playing with bows, oh, and with the toys, too. Here is a video of some of the fun for those interested in a glimpse at our morning. Lydia’s first look at all the gifts (watch video) Lydia discovers her riding toy (watch video)