Tag: Lydia

The Lydster, Part 97: One Surprise After Another

The Daughter always seemed to have far fewer birthday parties with her friends than most of her classmates. Oh, there would be the gatherings with family, including her maternal grandparents, and usually a pair of her cousins and an uncle and aunt. But it has been unbalanced. Once a couple of years ago, we did a party at the State Museum with her friends, but that was it.

She indicated a few months ago that she wanted a surprise party; not sure why. But we decided to make it so. First, we had a little gathering the weekend before her birthday with her mom, dad, and grandparents, so she didn’t think we’d blown her off. Then we rented a room at the local bowling alley for a few hours.

The morning of the party, I put together the gift bags for the children attending, distracted the Daughter while her mother sneaked the cake she made out of the house, got her dressed, and so forth.

I also got her to help clean the house based on the rumor that Grandma and Grandma might be staying over. That was actually unlikely, but it was possible that her other uncle/aunt/cousin from southern Pennsylvania, might be staying over.

About a half-hour before showtime, we tell the Daughter we are going bowling, so she’d be wearing socks. As we walked into the room, and people yell “Surprise”, she’s confused and a little frightened; she sees some unfamiliar people, a couple of siblings and parents of her friends, who she does not know. But soon, she has sussed out that this is the surprise party she had requested and smiled broadly.

The kids, and some of the parents, bowled for an hour. Then we had pizza (quite good, actually), cake that the Wife made, plus supplied ice cream. The time was too short to actually open presents, though (or we planned it not so well.) All of my wife’s family went over to our house.

You may recall that the TV set died last month. Well, this was the next day, and my two brothers-in-law said they’d take me shopping – two shopping trips in two weekends, which was unprecedented for me. At least this one was singular in focus. Went to Radio Shack, which had TVs either too large or way too small. Then to Green Furniture – the running joke was that it was my cousin’s place – but they’re out of the TV business. Eventually, we make it to BJ’s Wholesale; one brother-in-law has a membership. We need something that will fit into a 29″ wide and 18″ high space, and we find something. The old TV had a tube; this TV, the screen part was thinner than a sturdy book.

Oh, and that brother-in-law decided that, instead of him paying for the adults bowling (which he had offered), and for his share of the dinner (previously agreed to), he’d just pay for the TV and call it even, or part of MY birthday present! In any case, an unexpected turn of events.

The family gathered for dinner, after which there was a second surprise party, for Lydia’s grandma, who was turning a certain age divisible by five. Among her presents, a certain number of wishes, written by her four granddaughters. Eventually, one of Carol’s brothers and his family returned home; the other brother and his family, with the longer trip, went to his parents’ house.

A glorious day.

The Lydster, Part 96: Happy natal day

This year, it’s Pops or Popsy. Popsy?

I’ve said this before, but it bears repeating: when it comes to parenting, I have no idea what I’m doing, save for my basic intellect and common sense. Still, I guess The Daughter is turning out all right.

Lydia is at least four and a half feet tall. Ballet moves are created in our living room each week after her class. While she is still shy around grownups she doesn’t know, she’s quite good with children unknown to her. I believe she’s rather good at math, and she seems to enjoy spelling. The things she can do physically on the playground I could never do at her age; she is quite physically strong. She loves doing arts and crafts and singing. Her teacher knows she’s smart but wants her to raise her hand with the answer more often.

Last year, she called me Daddy, or Dad. This year, it’s Pops or Popsy. Popsy? We watched the second video here, and we got to pretend that we were on the roller coaster together.

I read I Did These Things as a Kid, But My Kids Won’t. Without waxing nostalgic, I have to think that parents, as a whole, are more protective these days, and I’m in their number. “Where IS is the line drawn between good protection (seat belts and not letting your kids drink bleach) and being overprotective to where it is stifling for them?” I think about this sometimes. FreeRangeKids is a fascinating read if you are interested in that sort of discussion, but I’M not there yet.

She’s still in the “hug daddy” stage; she hasn’t tired of me yet. And she’ll even tell me she loves me, unbidden. Suffice it to say, I tell her the same.
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A couple of songs that have caught her attention recently:
Istanbul (Not Constantinople) by They Might Be Giants
And this song, which she likes because of the instrumentation; she’s not on her own yet!

The Lydster, Part 95: A Good Heart, for Jamaica

Donations to the project came from all different sources including a generous, heartfelt gift from Lydia who had saved several months of her spending money because she felt ‘all children should have a safe school’

The Moses Baker Basic School in Golden Grove, Jamaica is in one of the poorest communities in a poor country. My mother-in-law writes: “The previous building was a wooden structure which was in bad condition, made even worse each time it was blown apart by hurricanes.” Her church in Oneonta, NY “had been sending teams down each summer [since 2000] to do projects in the community,” first working on getting the health center up to snuff, then repairing the preschool for about 80 kids. “No sooner were the repairs completed each year a storm blew through more than undoing all of the work. The residents picked up the pieces and put them back on as best they could.

Finally, the church decided to postpone the annual trips to save up some money to build a school strong enough to withstand severe storms, made of “rebar reinforced concrete… The old ‘building’ was torn down as soon as school ended in June 2011.

“The new construction started immediately in order to be completed in time for school in September 2011.” Info about the construction can be seen here. The Oneonta church pastor and her husband, an RN, went down last month to dedicate the building. The church had “raised about $70,000 for the project and, as the community wanted, built a strong building which could have a second story added at some time in the future if needed. The people were ecstatic, not only for the building but that the [pastor] had come since they have no pastor at present. But there is more to the story.

“Donations to the project came from all different sources including a generous, heartfelt gift from [her granddaughter, my daughter] Lydia who had saved several months of her spending money because she felt ‘all children should have a safe school’….” When she and my wife went to a clothing consignment shop to sell some clothes, Lydia was told that the money gleaned from the sale of her clothes could be spent by her. But she opted to donate this money to the Jamaica project as well.

Then, “the sugar company which has a monopoly on selling the area’s sugar had to return [some] money to Jamaica, and the decision-making group heard about this school. The company is giving $65,000 to build a needed retaining wall around the school and to further finish the school construction. In addition, they plan to give about $75,000 to the health center for community needs. Amazing! “

The Lydster, Part 95: Time

I was fascinated by cereal boxes, specifically the various B vitamins and how some of them, such as niacin and riboflavin, actually got their own names, rather than a mere alphanumeric designation.

Someone recently told me that children don’t really develop a strong sense of time until they are eight years old. If this is the case, then I really look forward to the Daughter’s next birthday.

As the person who gets her ready for school almost every morning, I can say that there is no correlation between what time she gets up and when she goes out the door for school. There have been mornings that I have to, almost literally, drag her out of bed, but then she becomes more alert and gets to school in plenty of time. There are other mornings she wakes early, yet we are rushing to get there before the late bell; in the latter case, it also imperils me catching my second bus of the morning and getting to work on time.

Some of the time issues involve play. But the vast bulk of it is her reading something. She reads everything – books, comic books, cereal boxes. And I realize that it is some sort of cosmic payback because I was THE SAME WAY.

When I was a child, I read the newspaper. I read the information on the back of my baseball cards. And I was fascinated by cereal boxes, specifically the various B vitamins and how some of them, such as niacin and riboflavin, actually got their own names, rather than a mere alphanumeric designation. So I was often late to things. I don’t think the Daughter’s quite at that point – YET – but I fear it’s coming because it’s probably genetic.
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Time – Pozo Seco Singers

The Lydster, Part 93: Line of Scrimmage

The thing that makes getting the Daughter dressed in the morning or evening take so long is her need to first throw her clothes past me. I believe this started innocently enough, with her teasing me by tossing her apparel for the day just out of my reach. But now it is codified, with all sorts of rules about where we each stand and what the goal is. I must say that the principles are fungible, but that the rules seemingly always favor her; of course, she SETS the rules, so there you are.

I have instituted the concept of punting the clothes, too. I’m really good at it, but she’s getting better.

Sometimes, when it’s taking too long, each of us catching the other’s tosses, I’ve been known to intentionally miss, not to soothe her ego, but because of lack of time. She always wins anyway, so it’s no big whoop.

In general, though we’re standing in the hallway. She holds the clothes and gets a point if she gets them past me. Neither one of us, though, can pass the line of scrimmage when we toss. “Line of scrimmage” is a phrase she learned playing football in gym class, not her sitting with me and watching football with me. Still, the fact that she knows the phrase, and the basic concepts, makes me happy, because, if/when she DOES want to watch a televised game with me, she’ll have a fundamental part down pat.

Somewhere I read that it is good for fathers and daughters to have games they can play with each other; this is ours. (Along with SORRY, UNO…)

Ramblin' with Roger
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