Since she is a key player in this little adventure Annie and I have undertaken, I suppose you deserve an introduction to Lydia, she is my oldest Daughter.

I’ll introduce her right now, because she was the first one, and because Lyd’s little sister and I are currently in a fight. An introduction to Regina might turn into a rant about what a pain in the butt it can be to raise a stubborn, tenacious and disobedient bobcat, err, daughter. Anyway…
Lyd was born after twenty-seven hours of sheer bliss, the finale was an emergency C-Section. When our eyes met, I experienced Love at first sight, and here I was thinking such a thing was a myth all those years prior to her entering my life.
She has beautiful long blonde wavy hair that bounces when she runs. She’s got a mild case of Heterochromia (like me). She is unusually articulate, Annie and I are both pretty avid readers, and we never did much in the area of baby talk, maybe that has something to do with it. Along with being articulate, she has a voice that carries, sometimes it really carries–all the way to places of embarrassment. Her voice can actually make one wonder if she’s been inhaling helium. She is incredibly friendly and outgoing; Lyd can actually be a little too exuberant with her hugs, at times her hugs are more like affectionate tackles.
Her friendliness has a contagious vibe, she seems to create friendliness in others. I do my best to set my bias aside, and still, there’s something a little magical about her.

Her run cracks me up. It’s not an athletic run, small steps that evoke the sound of a violin string being plucked. She tends to lean forward and hunch down into her run, which only adds to a pretty nonathletic looking, slightly comical run (another trait she got from me). I know, I feel bad for laughing, but let’s face it, how can we know what good-looking running looks like if you don’t have persons like me and Lyd to show you all what bad running looks like?
Pretty much any activity is the “best thing ever” for her. Her enthusiasm seems over the top, but it’s sincere. She loves art, and has an incredibly active imagination. She has attained Elite Level as far as play goes. Some days, I’ll be cleaning up in the kitchen, and will realize she’s been by herself for a pretty good while. I’ll quietly step into the Living Room to see her with two or three different play sets and…well, I’ve disappeared. Everything has disappeared. The Living Room is a wooded valley, my desk chair is a mountain peak, our coffee table is an oasis. She is completely engrossed in whatever play she is engaging in, and I can sit back for hours and watch. She has yet to become embarrassed of her imagination. The lines between the real world and her imagination still have some blurred spots. That wooden rocking horse in her play room can become a flying unicorn in a heartbeat and it can be just as real as anything else in her eyes. I try to keep her away from technology, it’s inevitable anyway. Why get a head start on it? She has a wonderful imagination, and she has a collection of wonderful tools to facilitate that imagination, let’s let her enjoy her age.
Ah—Her age. Five is a pretty incredible age, I didn’t realize how much I miss being five years old until she turned five, she’s allowing me to enjoy that age all over again.
She has a beautiful, innocent little soul. Sometimes when I look at her, I think about how “big” she’s getting. Then I look out the window at the great big world, and I am reminded of what she is. She is still pure, and innocent, she is tiny, with wide bright eyes, and she has a smile and a laugh that are contagious. And I still find myself fighting back an impulse to cocoon her in my scarred up arms and shield her from all things terrible.
She knows nothing of cruelty, she has yet to have a life experience that would leave her jaded. She expects the best out of everyone, because she has only ever known the best of everyone. She’s more interested in whether or not you have a pet than what you have done with your life or what you can do for her (unless you have met Cinderella or have a Tootsie Roll). I am envious of how unburdened she is, and I try (and still fail) to emulate her priorities.
I always suspected I would enjoy fatherhood, and it’s turned out that I Love it, and my best dreams about fatherhood never prepared me for what a great gig it actually is.
Over the course of this blog, I hope you’ll get a better picture of my wonderful, talkative, and clever funny-girl.