Lydia Log: Month 10

Today Lydia turns ten months old. I think she weighs in the vicinity of five bags of apples and is like, four bananas tall. Since we last spoke in detail on the subject (of Lydia, not produce), Little Miss has overcome an allergy to... something, she has learned to crawl at the speed of Phelps, she can (literally) climb the stairs, and she has identified certain locations throughout the house where she goes to make number 2. In case you are ever visiting and are curious as to why that baby is holding herself upright and rocking from one leg to the other, grunting and coughing - know that these locations are (i) her old car seat beside the couch in the living room, and (ii) the armchair at the head of our dining room table. It's cute. It's gross. It's comically predictable. It's captured on video, at length.

Meanwhile, in the backyard, we now have a swing set for the kiddies, which was generously donated by one of the neighbors looking to make his lawn easier to mow. The swing set, which admittedly needs some work, was carried by six local guys across three lawns and over two fences to be placed in our backyard. Perhaps they were motivated by the image of our poor suffering (not really) child covered in red hives (and her sweaty, cranky father), but I take back everything bad I ever said about our neighborhood (or at least the four homes immediately adjacent to ours). Except for the jerks, Colby is all class.

Lydia has also taken to standing up in the bathtub, thereby making bath time a rather nerve-wracking two parent activity. We have tried with limited success to coax her back into the tub with a whole army of cartoony animal tub toys, but she still insists on pulling herself upright on the most slippery surface in the entire house. And that is why quiet panic is and has been a pretty standard state of being for me over, oh, about ten months now.

Tune in next month when Lydia has learned to string those nonsensical syllables into a meaningful word or two, walk on her own, and load and fire a crossbow. Boioioing!