Lydia Turns Eight

Posted on June 11, 2019 by justeeni

It has been eight years since Lydia surprised us by coming two months before her due date, and in those eight years, she has not ceased to keep us on our toes! Our Lydia is so much passion and energy, love and excitement rolled up into one sweet little bundle, and we all had a blast celebrating her birthday.

Lydia is very bright. She’s always been a step ahead of me, it seems. This will serve her well for most of her life, at least her adult life! Although, it certainly does make homeschooling a challenge when she dreads anything repetitious. I’m constantly brainstorming how to keep things new for Lydia, and Dan and I have given up trying to “talk over her head”. When we need to discuss something she doesn’t need to hear, we can’t spell or use high-level vocabulary. We just have to send her from the room. I can’t even count the number of times we wanted to surprise Lydia with something fun – like going out for ice cream, but on the way there she would exclaim, “Can we get ice cream?!?”. Thankfully, she’s not one for surprises, likes getting exactly what she asks for, and is happy whenever anything is special.

In fact, our family has a saying that Lydia loves anything “new, exciting, and different”. When I cook a new meal, she raves about it (until we have leftovers). When we visit someone’s house, everything is amazing, no matter how big or small, old or new, as long as it’s different from our home. When we ask Lydia to set or clear the table, she undoubtably goes for the heaviest dish, or the least used utensils. During chores, we are constantly reminding her to do the old, boring things first. “If it seems interesting, you probably shouldn’t be doing it”.

She’s definitely a dreamer. Lydia is constantly coming up with new ideas for activities, crafts, or inventions. The other day she asked me if it would be possible to run a power line to the moon, then send tanks of oxygen to pump into a house so we could live there. I’ve given up answering all of her questions and have learned to aim them back at her, “Would you want to live on the moon?” She told me she wouldn’t because it wouldn’t be very colorful.

Lydia has an eye for beauty and I’m just waiting for the day this is going to bless our family in a million ways. She will be my party planner, my decorator, and my tidy-up-er (one can only hope). When she’s supposed to clean something, she undoubtably will get distracted making one area look especially beautiful, blissfully ignorant of the mess around her. She’s a bit absent-minded in her beauty-making these days, leaving trails of messes as she paints, picks flower bouquets, sets up pretend princess rooms, and usually ends up curled up in some cute little spot she created, reading a book.

You might not have expected it if you sat in on one of her reading lessons a couple of years ago, but Lydia loves to read. She can devour a chapter book in one sitting. I can hardly keep up with her as I get books from the library. Often, we pick up books on Saturday, and Lydia has exhausted the stack by Sunday afternoon. This does make some parts of school incredibly easy. History? If I don’t get to it, it won’t matter. She’ll have read all ten books about Thomas Edison in a day and know more than Dan or me.

When she’s not reading, Lydia loves to be the planner. When the girls play wedding, ballet, or any other form of dress-up, Lydia will spend more time setting up and planning than actually playing. Abby is always the one dressed up, while Lyds is the one dressing her up, pretend-doing her nails or make up, creating a hairstyle, putting together the outfit, and telling Abby just what to do. She loves to play with others, and having people over to our house is almost as good as Christmas. She’s never been one for a lot of toys, but prefers fun activities and “real” things she can use or do.

Lydia is passionate and energetic, but she also has a sweet and soft side to her personality. She has always been very sweet and forgiving. She can’t stand to see anyone in any sort of pain. She is quick to be the one offering comfort, especially to very young children. Her intense personality and sensitive nature rule out any future in emergency care though. The moment any kind of “emergency” arises, Lydia becomes completely overcome in her sympathy and goes frantic. She cries out, runs in circles, and can’t think straight. It might be a real emergency (like the time Elijah choked and had to go to the hospital) or it might not be (“Dad! There’s a car over there!!! … Oh, I thought we were going to hit it.”), but the reaction is the same and I am forever reminding her that the best thing to do in an emergency is to stay calm. Another guideline we have for Lydia is, “slow and steady”. For her whole life, when I ask her to do something more quickly (she likes to take a long time doing almost anything), she starts breathing faster, fumbling, and accomplishing things more slowly. We remind her of the “Tortoise and the Hare” and to go “slow and steady” to get things done more quickly.

For her birthday, Lydia wanted to dress up and play princess (with Mommy!), watch the ballet she put on this spring, and have a vanilla layer cake with pink whipped cream, raspberry filling, and flowers on the top (I did my best!). She wanted to have friends over one night and grandparents over one night, and a special meal on her actual birthday. She wanted a toy violin and a tiara and a new dress or her doll. And, knowing our Lydia likes to get exactly what she imagines, that’s pretty much how her birthday went.

Lately she has been asking me throughout the days, “Mom, are you having fun?”. She was thrilled when we played princess together and I told her I was. She knows I get stressed out a lot in my “mom duties” and she’s compassionate enough to avoid stressful situations to see a happy mommy. Yes, celebrating Lydia’s birthday was very fun. Having Lydia in our home is very fun. Our family would not be as exciting, energized, informed, or interesting without her.

We love you Lyds! We cannot wait to see what the next year holds for you! Happy eighth birthday!

Lydia at Seven

Posted on August 22, 2018 by justeeni

This May, Lydia turned seven.

Almost three months have snuck by because 1) I had some technical issues with the blog and computer, and 2) these (5!) kiddos keep me busy. But here’s an update on our Little Miss Lydia as a seven-year-old.

Lydia is spunky, energetic, sweet, fun, outgoing, enthusiastic, inquisitive, sensitive, persistent, and observant. She loves to do fun things, eat good food, and be with people all the time. She observes everything around her, picks up on others’ conversations, and asks a ton of questions. She learns quickly, eagerly tackles new projects, and loves looking forward to things.

Lydia is a people person. She loves activities where we get to be with people: church, Bible study, gymnastics lessons, open houses, camping trips, dinner dates, babysitters, and the list could go on. Once a week, Dan takes one kid out on a daddy-daughter or daddy-son date for some one-on-one time. Lydia loves it because it’s something to look forward to, she gets to be with Daddy, and she gets a treat.

Maybe this goes along with being a people person, but Lydia is extremely verbal. Last year we took a trip to Toledo and Lydia literally talked the whole way there. She told stories, sang songs, and occasionally asked a question, but didn’t usually wait for an answer. When she gets excited, she talks more (gets that from her mom). Lydia already knows a lot about the difference between being an introvert and extrovert (because we’re opposites) and she knows how to give me space when I need it. But, when I’m up for it, Lydia always appreciates doing one more thing together, hearing one more story, or getting one more (long) snuggle.

Lydia is a sponge. This year she’s taken off on her reading and will read anything she finds lying around. For a day or two after we visit the library, we can hardly get her to do anything other than devour every single book we brought home. Then she asks me to read them to her too. She loves to read to me and she loves when I read to her. She’s also been learning piano (via hoffmanacademy.com) and she does extra math practice for fun (via khanacademy.com). She asks tons of questions. In fact, I started keeping a list of her questions. Once a week, during school, we learn all about all the things she wants to know. My current list includes: windmills, food born illnesses, branches of the military, how to play chess, how bikes work, how toilets work, ants, state versus federal politics, and our family history. I don’t come up with these ideas. They really come straight out of her mouth.

Lydia is a ball of energy. Maybe that’s obvious from what I’ve written so far. Looking back over the past few paragraphs leaves me feeling tired (and she’s not even with me right now!). But Lydia is also incredibly sweet and forgiving. She hates to be separated from others physically or emotionally. Sending her to her room is torture, telling her she can’t go to an activity is worse, and having a broken relationship with someone is the worst of all. She has a strong, but soft heart, and it hurts her to see others sad.

It is amazing to look back at Lydia’s life, all the way back to her first days in the NICU, and see her personality shine through from Day One. God has given us a precious gift in this little seven-year-old, and we are looking forward to see where He takes her in the years ahead.

The Fountain Picture

Posted on October 6, 2017 by justeeni

This morning I got up extra early to go through all of our summer pictures, which I hope to share on here someday. But for this rainy Friday, here’s the latest of our Fountain Picture Tradition:

2013

2014

2015

2017

This Crazy Kiddo

Posted on June 8, 2017 by justeeni

Lydia turned six at the end of May. She had been counting down to her birthday for over three months. Several days each week she would update us on what she wanted to do for her birthday, who she wanted to have over, and what presents she wanted to receive. When the birthday weekend finally arrived, we had a lot of birthday and start-of-summer fun. We took her to a toy store to pick out a toy to buy with her birthday money, got ice cream and pizza, and spent much of her actual birthday at the playground. She constantly reminded us to sing and say “Happy Birthday” and begged me to make her a “birthday balloon” (a balloon with a smiley face drawn on it). She got pink roses from Dan and went on her second-ever Daddy-daughter-birthday date.

Lydia has also been asking regularly if it’s warm enough to play in the sprinkler or go to a pool. Since the first day of spring, it’s been hard to keep socks or shoes on her feet, not to mention a coat. She loves playing “house” outside and is so proud that this year she’s big enough to climb into our tree house all by herself.

Lydia loves to play pretend, dance, and snuggle. She is always dressing up as a bride or asking to “play princess” with Dan, which is not exactly his favorite game. 😉 She loves any hands-on activities and anything “special”. Bridal showers, weddings, holidays, birthdays, and get-togethers are sure to put her on her best behavior because she’s just so happy. When she learns it’s a significant day, for any reason, she’ll wonder why we aren’t celebrating more. For example, she asked why we weren’t having a fancy breakfast or a special dessert for groundhog’s day.

Kindergarten was a breeze for Lydia. Thankfully (for me) she picks up on things really fast. Really, the best way to teach Lydia is to not teach her but let her watch others do the task. When she gets it in her head that she wants to try, she usually can succeed. This has worked well with laundry, cleaning up after meals, serving food, and even math lessons. I can get her to learn a lot more by doing a lesson half myself and letting her do the other half, than if I explain a concept to her and ask her to do the assignment alone.

Gift-giving might be Lydia’s top love language. She loves to make “gifts” for people – homemade construction paper cards, simple cross-stitch pictures, cut out pieces of paper, and bouquets of flowers (dandelions or violets, usually) picked from our yard. She also loves receiving gifts. When she was struggling to do her reading lessons with a cheerful attitude, we discovered small prizes work wonders to get her motivated. And now that our library has started their summer reading program, Lydia has been reading at least a book a day to win her prizes, when it was always a struggle to do a page or two in her reading lesson book.

She’s always been our most verbal child, so it’s no surprise that Lydia is almost always talking. If we had the patience and knowledge to answer all of her questions, she would be a genius. On ANY topic, Lydia can rattle off 5 questions without taking a break. Usually her trains of questions come to an halt whenever Mom or Dad have to ask for a break so we can focus on something or give attention to someone else. Lydia also has a very good memory. She has memorized over 100 Bible verses (with desserts as the most effective incentive). The other day we were listening to our daily news radio program during breakfast and one of their regular promo segments started playing. She recited the 30 second promo pretty well right on top of the program.

This year is Lydia’s turn to accompany me to our church Ladies’ Retreat for a Mommy-Daugther date and she’s pretty thrilled. She’s been looking forward to her turn ever since I took Abby last year. Her memory is pretty incredible in that way too. For example, about nine months ago we took Lydia to a dentist appointment. They told her that she would earn a stuffed animal prize if she could stop sucking her thumb for 30 days. She stopped that very day. Last month I took her again and she got her prize. The next day I found her sucking her thumb after eight months without it! Dan and I had to explain that the point was to stop altogether, not just stop for eight months to earn her prize and then start again.

Some of my most precious memories of Lydia lately have been our one-on-one times together. Sometimes Lydia will snuggle up next to me during nap time and play with my hair while she listens to an audio book. Occasionally Lydia helps me cook dinner, peeling carrots or stirring vegetables as they cook (that’s her favorite because she feels so grown up working at the stove). I try to remember to give her snuggles, hugs, and tickles whenever my hands are free because my hands are so often full, I’ll go days without a Lydia hug if I’m not intensional. (Don’t worry about her being deprived though, Dan picks up the slack. Lydia is quite gifted at sneaking into his lap whether he says it’s ok or not!)

Kindergarten – Taylor Style

Posted on October 17, 2016 by justeeni

Several weeks ago, Lydia began her first “real” year of school. We handled preschool pretty casually, mostly teaching her the letters and some very beginner reading. This year we have a much more structured school day, and everybody is loving it.

For those who are curious, I’m primarily using a book called Learning at Home. This is a day-by-day curriculum that includes Bible, Reading, Math, Art, Gym, Story-time, Music, God’s World (science, geography, community), Health/Manners, Character Building, and Field Trips. The lessons are set up in a casual “talk to your child” sort of format, also using a lot of library books as resources. It’s an older book (1988), so last year I “previewed” all of the library books and made my own substitutions where books were out or print, they were unavailable from the library, or I didn’t approve of them for some reason or another. I had also started Lydia with An Ordinary Parent’s Guide to Teaching Reading last year, so I’m subbing that for the reading lessons.

We have spent so much time talking about, researching, and getting Lydia pumped up for Kindergarten, that everyone was really excited on the first day of school.

Because we want our children to learn how to spend time alone reading the Bible and praying each day, Lydia starts her school day by listening to ten minutes or so of her Word and Song Bible (This is our favorite audio story Bible, but it’s sadly out of print, so you have to find it used. The books are cheap on Amazon or Ebay and the sound files are available on iTunes.)

Then we plunge right in. I printed off these daily Calendar pages from Confessionsofahomeschooler.com and the girls love filling them out. It’s totally extra and lately we haven’t even been doing them, but the girls love it when we do.

I love how hands-on the activities are. Every day Lydia is excited to see what she gets to do.

Since math is my favorite subject, I’ve found myself tailoring that subject to fit Lydia’s speed and interests a little better.

Once a week I have Lydia draw a picture and narrate for her journal and once a week I have her do a few pages in a handwriting workbook.

Paul and Abby just kind of tag along with whatever Lydia is doing.

Our field trips have certainly made for some fun weekends. So far we’ve visited the zoo, a harvest festival, the Ann Arbor children’s hands-on museum, and an apple orchard to pick apples. Most of the pictures are still on my camera, but here’s a fun one of the closest hippo encounter we’ve ever had. 🙂

Birthday Princess (Lydia’s Fifth Birthday Celebration)

Posted on June 8, 2016 by justeeni

Five years ago on Memorial Day, Lydia Hope was born unexpectedly. Unexpectedly because, after a completely routine and healthy pregnancy, my water broke at only 30 weeks. Several hours later we had a baby. This year, Lydia’s birthday fell on Memorial Day again. It was her fifth birthday. And, for several reasons, this one felt like a big one. Since Dan had the day off and Lydia knew exactly what she wanted to do for her birthday, and since Dan and I knew exactly what Lydia would love for her birthday, we made the day a pretty epic celebration.

Dan greeted Lydia in the morning with a birthday tiara and a bouquet of orange roses, her current favorite flower. Dan has a tradition of getting his girls birthday flowers and he puts a lot of thought into getting them flowers that they will love.

Then Dan and Lydia took off on their own for Lydia’s first Daddy-daughter date. They went to Leo’s, a coney island just down the road from us, and Lydia got to pick whatever she wanted from the menu. Now Lydia had been fighting this plan for weeks because she likes us all to be together and just couldn’t understand why Daddy had to take just her. Afterward she told Dan, “I didn’t think it was going to be fun, but it was.”

When they got back, we surprised Lydia with a couple of small gifts. Gum, and nail polish. She’s been drooling over both for the past several months with no idea she could ever actually chew gum or wear nail polish. “Maybe when I’m sixteen?”, she would ask. Lydia’s not usually a good “reaction” girl. She takes in surprises slowly and gets excited a day or so later. The gum and nail polish must have been pretty good surprises then, because her reactions were priceless.

After lunch and a quick (failed) attempt at naps, we packed up and headed to the splash pad for some more fun. I didn’t bring my camera with me, so you’ll have to use your imagination on this part. Abby was beside herself with excitement. She loves playing in water. Paul was uncertain and spent much of the time watching the kids play but keeping away from the water himself. Lydia was in and out of the water, torn between relaxing on her towel and running around getting wet.

Then we fulfilled Lydia’s requests for dinner: pizza and ice cream from restaurants. The first pizza place we tried was closed for Memorial Day, but we yelped “best pizza” in the area and found a winner. We got our meal to go and ate outside at our favorite ice cream place, a locally owned Dairy King in Plymouth. Paul was a trooper and didn’t complain once about his steamed broccoli and bananas while the other kids got pizza and ice cream.

There’s a picture of me when I was about Lydia’s age, eating some sort of blue ice cream out of a cone while standing on a beach. I wish I had it to post along with this one. Ice cream all over my face. Like Mother, Like Daughter.

It was late by the time we got home, but we finally let Lydia open her “official” present from us, a new (bigger) ballet leotard and tights. The girls danced around in their dress up clothes before finally getting ready for bed

As Dan was tucking Lydia in, I heard her crying, “Today was the best day in the woooorrrlllddd. I don’t want it to end everrrr.” Good thing we’re Taylors. “It’s not just a birthday, it’s a celebration” is what we like to say, and the celebration continued over the next two days.

Tuesday Lydia got her presents from my mom and Dan’s Gramma. Abby had trouble understanding why they weren’t for her and Paul was disgusted at the amount of clothes Lydia was opening.

And, finally, Wednesday tapered off the celebration with a visit from Dan’s parents, more presents, and sharing the news with Lydia that Grandma got a job in Ann Arbor and is moving down here!

The birthday was a complete success, way too much fun for me to handle in a day, and a meaningful way for us to show Lydia how very thankful we are that God has given her to us, even it she was unexpectedly early.

An Interview with Our Five Year Old

Posted on May 31, 2016 by justeeni

This afternoon I sat down with Lydia for a little interview. Here’s a glimpse of what this kid is all about. We had a blast celebrating her birthday yesterday, so hopefully I’ll get to share some of those memories soon. For now, here’s Lydia, as a five-year-old.

Easter According to Lydia

Posted on March 29, 2016 by justeeni

Our family had a wonderful day celebrating Easter this weekend. In fact, we had such a nice day, I didn’t even think to take pictures. Sorry!

But, I do have something to share with you all today. 🙂

A couple of years ago, I used a picture book to teach Lydia about Easter. We looked at it every day for about a week and in the end, Lydia was able to use the book to tell me about Easter. Well, since Abby is now two and I thought it would be a good tradition to keep, we pulled out the same book and learned Easter again this year. I was hoping to capture Abby’s version, but it turns out she isn’t quite as eager to be videotaped or to share anything on demand. So instead, I have for you all, four-year-old Lydia’s version of Easter. And, just for fun, I’m posting her two-year-old version here too. Her voice was so high and cute!

Happy belated Easter everyone. He is risen!

The Necklace

Posted on January 21, 2016 by justeeni

For Christmas my sister and brother-in-law gave Lydia some beads and stretchy string to make jewelry. After we got back from our trip up North, I spent a couple of days helping her make necklaces and bracelets. She made some for herself, some for Abby, and I made one for Lydia too. I was soon all beaded out.

One day Dan sat down with Lydia and she decided to make a necklace for me. Dan helped and soon I was presented with a small collection of mismatched beads on a string. Of course, I wore it all day and then left it sitting on my dresser when I went to sleep that night.

Fast forward a day or two. Our morning was not going well. Lydia was being difficult and I was getting frustrated. After yet another episode with lots of whining and crying and poor behavior (on both sides), I stomped upstairs to give myself a time out. I was near-tears-frustrated and knew I needed to cool down before having a talk with Lydia. As I sat on my bed and fumed, I started to pray, but I just couldn’t seem to calm myself down.

I glanced up and decided to get ready for the rest of the day, but something on my dresser caught my eye.

“Oh great”, I thought to myself, “the girls got into my stuff and broke one of my necklaces”. I, still angry, stood up and walked over to the dresser to assess the damage. There, lying on the wooden dresser was my necklace from Lydia.

Tears came to my eyes (again) and sentimental music started playing in my head as I slowly picked up the necklace and stared at it in my hand.

My anger was gone and the day was saved. My sweet baby girl, who is still far too young to control herself of her emotions the way I should be able to, loved me enough to want to make this for me. Even though I blow it. Even though I get angry.

Just then I heard my Little Munchkin, my Gooselett, my daughter, climbing the stairs cheerfully, fully recovered from <her meltdown. I put the necklace on and resolved to do my best to make the day a good one, a memorable one. For her.

Little Treats

Posted on November 5, 2015 by justeeni

Lydia is getting old enough now to have discussions with us. We had one recently at breakfast about “treats”. She has come to associate treats with dessert and I was trying to explain to her that a treat doesn’t have to be a small, sweet, edible snack.

A treat is anything that you enjoy, that you don’t get very often.

We listed some examples of treats and went on with our day. Since it’s November, I thought the conversation was pretty fitting. It’s fun to focus and watch other people focus on things for which we are thankful.

Of course, one of the things I’m grateful for, well three of the things that I’m thankful for are my kids. Today for your own little treat, I’m going to share some of the cute things the girls have been saying.

Abby doesn’t say much yet. At least, not enough to get a quote from. But she does have one quoteable moment from the past week. After breakfast we were having our daily “Bible time”. I asked the girls, as I always do, what they were thankful for that day. Lydia has a handful of items she often repeats: bubbles, bread, seeing friends, and Grandma. Abby always says the same thing: Pizza (which sounds more like “Pita”). But one morning Abby surprised me with a new one, “Anju”. I asked her if she meant her friend from church and she nodded.

“Aww, Abby, that’s so sweet”. And she added “and Jesus.”

Now that it’s harder to sneak treats without sharing with Lydia, our family has learned that she also has inherited our sweet tooth. One night when we had finished dinner and were getting ready for Bible study, Lydia informed us that she wanted a “sweet treat” and when she didn’t think we had understood her, she insisted she wanted “a little somethin’ somethin’.”

After our vacation last month, we had some leftover apple cider sitting in our fridge. Lydia consistently asked for some hot cider every single day. One evening when it looked like she wasn’t going to get any she walked up to Dan, who was sitting in the living room. She very gently put her hand on his arm, lay her head on his shoulder and looked up at him with the biggest eyes imaginable as she cooed, “I love you Daddy…” She probably did get some hot apple cider that night.

Several weeks ago I was sitting in the living room. Lydia was on the floor playing with a doll when she looked up at me and asked, “Mom, did God, like, put glue on my head and put my hair on?”

The other day I was having a comical conversation with Lydia trying to ask her to do something and she was not following. “Lydia,” I insisted, “use your brain.” She responded cheerfully, “Ok, but I don’t know where my brain is.”

MI Taylor Family

We live in Michigan.

Category Archives: Lydia Hope