Today was Lydia’s 10th Birthday. It is so cool that her birthday is on International Women’s Day! Starting last year, I’ve invited Lydia to pick a value she wants me to document so she can be thoughtful about the values she wants to hold onto as she grows up. Last year she chose determination (shown through her dedication to reading and the reading competition, sticking with harp and several other things). This year she chose fun. What a great value!!
In the morning, I took some extra time from work to help with breakfast. Lily ran to the store for ingredients and together we made a yummy waffle, fruit and whipped cream breakfast for our sweet Lydia.
While Lydia was at school, I worked and at some point in the day, Lily ran an errand for Georgia. While running her errand she saw a very long line at Gunny’s that was concerning.
I was having a stressful workday, and in a irritable mood, but at one point I stopped to write in each page of a “50 reasons why I love you” book for Lydia, and that made me really happy and really changed my mood. Lily did the same thing and also enjoyed it.
I also had a visit from some very cute wizards with their wands. I thought they were adorable!
Also, while Lydia was at school, Clarissa helped Lily make Shepard’s pie, Lydia’s special birthday meal. Here is an adorable video of Clarissa kurplunking the vegetables into the pot.
Around 2:30, Lily took the kids to start Lydia’s cupcake party. I raced to get my work done, and showed up a little after halfway through. It was so fun!
Then it was time for me to take Lydia and Mary skiing. We had a bit of a rough moment when Lydia freaked out because I brought the wrong snow-pants (size 6), and I corrected her very sharply for her behavior, although I did feel bad about her having to wear snowpants that were so small. At the end of the day, her feet did get cold, but as I will detail, we all ended up having a wonderful wonderful time.
I got myself a night skiing pass today so I could be up on the mountain with Lydia and Mary. I didn’t want to interfere much during their lesson, so I just skied my own rounds and tried to stick around them and say hi and take pictures when I could. Here are some videos and pictures.
It was so fun watching the girls ski in their class and I was blown away by how well they were doing. Lydia told me that her instructor let her lead the entire class down the mountain. Even with how good they were doing, I still felt nervous about skiing with them. Would we be able to get off the ski lift ok together? What if they struggled on the mountain, and I’m not a trained instructor to help them? When their class was over, I asked if they wanted to ski more, and they gave a resounding yes! In fact, we went down the mountain three times from the first ski-lift stop. We needed a little help from the staff to get on the ski-lift chair, but they helped us, and getting off was way easier than I expected. The girls skied so well, and I had so much fun with them. Lydia kept pushing for more and more speed, and loved asking me over and about how fast she was going. Mary kept right up and we had a ball. I have to give a lot of credit to Lily who really spoke up about making sure we got the girls in ski lessons this year. It has turned out to be such an incredible thing, and such an amazing thing to do with the girls on Lydia’s birthday!
It was so nice to come home to incredible Shepherds pie and cupcakes from the party earlier. Lydia opened some presents, but not all because Clarissa fell asleep and we wanted her to be a part of it, so she opened the rest in the morning the next day over breakfast. Lydia did read the love book Lily and I wrote in for her, and gave me the most intentional and sincere thank you. She said something to the effect of, “dad, thank you for this. Really, Thank You.” I could tell she was touched in a similar way that I was touched when she gave me a love book like that for Christmas. I completely borrowed her brilliant idea.
Here is a video of us over dinner while Lydia read her love book, I recounted how I made up for the wedgie I gave Lydia by bringing the wrong snowpants, by buying her an edgie wedgie so we could ski together.
All in all it was such a fun day for all. I love my Lydia so much. She is kind, thoughtful, sensitive, honest, talented, brilliant, happy, caring, obsessed with animals, loves her siblings, responsible, beautiful, funny, fun, creative, great with crafts, musical, so so knowledgeable (always reading and researching), talented at baking, introspective, humble and sincere. She is the perfect oldest sister for our family. We love you so so so much Lydia!