Time for another VERY long overdue update on Lydia. It has been over a year since my last update and that is really unacceptable at this point. I will update this more often this year, I promise!
In a very short time Lydia will be a full six years old! She amazes me more and more every day. She has grown up so much it is hard to believe at times. She started kindergarten this year in September. We had a bit of a difficult time deciding on where we were going to send her. We were contemplating sending her to the public school which is only a few blocks away, but is also only half day. We ended up sending her to Valley Christian Academy. We may not keep her there but we wanted to send her there to get a good academic start. The program is a full day and also has religion as a part of the teachings, which we like.
She made the transition well into Kindergarten. Her teacher is Mrs. Adkins, and Lydia really likes her. Mrs. Adkins runs the class very well. Lydia's class has a very large amount of boys in there. Currently there are 15 boys and 5 girls, and the other kindergarten class is the same. Kind of interesting. A boy in her class made friends with her, Hamilton. He is so cute and was her protector during the first few weeks. She has since made other friends, but one friend in particular is her favorite. Garrett. They play together so well and have a great time together. She has gone over to his house and played, but we haven't had him over here yet. We should do that soon. He will definitely be invited to her birthday party.
Lydia is doing well in Kindergarten. She is reading very well and is also doing great in math and spelling. I think they expect a lot out of these kids, but the kids never complain they can't do it, so it must be okay. It is a long way from my kindergarten report card of knowing colors, put on jacket independantly, shoe tying etc. They are counting change, reading the time on the clock, having weekly spelling tests and such. They do fun things to like art activities, and music, and computer class too, so it isn't all strictlhy the three R's all the time. Oh, that brings to me her writing. This is her most difficult area. She can do it, but I can tell she doesn't see the point in wasting time to do it neatly. I try to get it through to her that if people can't read what you write, it is frustrating for the reading and for the person writing to get their thoughts across. I should bring her one of the student lab books from school here. I literally cannot read what one girl in class writes. It is dreadful.
She is on the lean side still but has muscles beyond belief! She is strong! She is somewhere between 47 and 48 inches and is 42 lbs. She has battled the normal stuff at school with colds and a bout of the stomach bug. She got that the second week of school and almost missed a field trip because of it. It was the longest tummy flu I have ever seen. It was almost a week long! Every child who came down with it missed four complete days of school. That is a lot!
Lydia and Andrew are very happy to see each other now at the end of day since they go to different schools. Lydia keeps telling him all about Kindergarten and I can see Andrew isn't that thrilled with the thought of Kindergarten. He is starting to read with her first blend book, so that is good. We need to work on his penmanship as well.
Lydia is getting excited about her birthday. She wants a pair of roller skates. I have to find her a good boot pair of skates. I learned when I was 5 and LOVED roller skating. I hope she gets a fondness for it as well. It is such good exercise. I would like to get her into a ballet class too. It is hard with me working so far away though. We shall see what we can do. It may have to be a summer dance class. We will definitely do swimming lessons again this summer. The kids loved those last summer and couldn't wait to go each day.
