I can see her wide lips pouted out in a stubborn defiance, her head down--ready to butt an opponent--and her solid body's pent-up strength thrusting forth her attack. Sometimes she tells me with those signature Cousino lips, words enunciated forcefully with measured pauses, "I don't like you at all!"
But this same girl is our most dedicated cuddler and thumb-sucker. When she gives hugs, she wraps her arms around my neck with a good squeeze. She loves to curl up on the couch with someone she loves. She invariably asks to sit on my lap for a book--and the others generally acknowledge Mama or Daddy's lap as Lydia's place when we read.
She was the most persistent with nursing, and even after she was weaned, she liked to crawl into bed with me every morning (always on the same side) to cuddle for a while (always with a limb draped over me). Even though she weaned around her second birthday, she still asks me occasionally if she can nurse--sometimes she's said she wants "a little sip of milk from Mama." Several times she has asked me why Clara gets to nurse and she doesn't. Once she ran up to me while I sat in the living room, nursing Clara. She held out a scrap of paper with some writing on it and declared, "Stop! This says, 'Stop nursin' Flara!' "
Lydia is a girl with a big heart. She likes to recite a litany of her loves: "I wuv my Mama. I wuv my Daddy. I wuv my Lala. I wuv my two Lalas and two Pas. I wuv 'Siah and Abby. I wuv my baby sisser Flara. I wuv all things!" (She adds or subtracts names at times--meaning no slight, I'm sure--but always ends it with her love of "all things"--an echo of a catechism question the kids have learned.) Before Clara was born, she'd often kiss my belly and start off her litany by saying she loved her baby sister. Sometimes Shashy and soccer have made the list of things she most loves, too!
Her love is sometimes a little too fierce. She's knocked me off-balance with the force of her running hugs. She knocked Clara out of her little rock'n'play cradle when she (Clara) was just about a week old--I think she lovingly rocked it just a bit too hard! Her remorse was real and deep, though. She cried much longer than Clara did!
Lydia loves animals as well as people. At Grandma and Pa's house in Flagstaff, she likes to follow Shashy around with a hand on her back--and she gets way too close to Shashy's face in order to get a "kiss." We have to limit her time with Shashy for the poor dog's sake. Typically Lydia is very friendly with other people's dogs; we usually need to remind her to hold back, wait, and ask before petting. (Until very recently, Abby was just the opposite!)
In the children's games, Lydia often pretends to be an animal: "a little doggie" and "a little lamb" are her favorites. As a little lamb she certainly has a forceful "BAAA!" though. She (and Abby) compete to be Josiah's little doggie (or sometimes horsie or even reindeer), and he's thrilled that they comply with his wish to tie a rope around their wrists or waists.
Speaking of lambs, Lydia's favorite song in the past few months has been the "little lamb song" from a Rain for Roots album. The song recounts Jesus' parable of the shepherd who left his 99 sheep to search for his one lost lamb. This song has often caused Lydia to tear up as she vividly imagines that poor, lonely, frightened lamb. She genuinely rejoices each time she listens and the shepherd finds it!
Songs and stories hold particular emotive power over Lydia. A few months ago, Jeremy told the kids about a time when he (as a child) rode his bike all over his neighborhood to look for his lost dog--and gave his parents and grandparents quite a scare. "When you a little boy, you look for your doggie and get lost?" Lydia asked, and then burst into tears. She sobbed for a while about Daddy getting lost as a little boy.
At some point we also recounted the story about Abby and Lydia's escape from Pa and Grandma's house in Flagstaff last winter. (Jeremy and I had gone out for breakfast, and apparently the girls went out the front door--in the snow, in their footie pajamas--and down the street. Pa found them there in the icy road with a lady who had stopped her truck to find out whose babies they were.) Oh, this story unleashes the floodgates. "We two little girls, we get lost!" Lydia would say, crying and crying. For days (weeks) after she heard this story, she'd repeat this phrase and battle the sobs welling up within her.
One weekend she snuggled on the couch with Daddy and listened to music. The Fiddler on the Roof song about Chava (the third daughter who married the Russian) came on. Lydia wanted to know what Tevye was singing about, so Jeremy told her an abbreviated version of the story. "His little girl go away? Leave him?" she asked, haltingly, eyes wide.
"Yes," Jeremy said. "He was sad because his little girl went away."
After a sorrowful pause, Lydia said, "I won't leave you, Daddy. . . . I can't drive."
"This girl didn't have a car," Jeremy said.
"She walked?!" Lydia said, in tearful incredulity. "She pack her suitcase?!" And then the tears flowed.
Lydia's laugh and "crazy face" with wild eyes are contagious. She makes me laugh with her expressions and statements, attitudes and ideas. But she is also takes the lead role in most domestic tragedies around here. Some days she falls apart about every other minute, for no explicable reasons. Some evenings bedtime turns into a vale of tears: Lydia sobs through the songs, prayer, kisses, etc., and often her only explanation is, "I want my Lala!" (Yes, sometimes she's just tired--her exhaustion comes out in heartbreak and weeping.) Quite often as I clean up after breakfast, I hear Lydia's wail ascend to heaven as she comes in the back door and calls my name to tell me how the world is ending today.
While her sadness can be a deluge, Lydia's wrath can be scorching--but it is often quick. She doesn't pout so much as she defies. Sometimes she relishes being mean. I've seen her whack Abby over the head with a PVC pipe for no apparent reason, a big grin on her face. She poked Abby near the eye with a fork at a meal recently. And she and Josiah can get into quite a tussle over a coveted stick or shovel or piece of rope.
But she's softhearted when I pray for Jesus to help her calm down, gain self-control, change her attitude, etc. She often asks that I pray for her--and then says, "Please you pray again? Two times!" A couple weeks ago she spontaneously prayed for herself while sobbing in her chair: "Jesus please help me talm down and obey Mama" and various other requests that were semi-unintelligible. What a sweetheart!
Even though she's surefooted and solid, Lydia strikes me as the most accident-prone of the children. Owies just befall her regularly. She also flirts with danger (pulling at roses, riding over the bridge at breakneck speed, hanging upside-down from the climbing bars, running while looking behind her, jumping purposefully close to a cholla cactus, etc.).
One wouldn't expect it, but Lydia is our most meticulous child in her artwork and schoolwork. When we do workbook sheets, she spends the longest time on each page, working slowly to perfect her tracing and finish each step. (Josiah gets impatient, and Abby tends to go quickly and scribble.) She draws lots of concentric circles and dots during free-drawing time. She loves to write Ls and does so pretty legibly.
Lydia loves to be a helper! Out of our three "big kids," she most reliably and thoroughly works to pick up toys or complete some task I've set them. She always wants to pull up a chair and help me cook. She felt so proud of her role as Lala's helper during some meal prep over Christmas. She also likes to "help" Kezzie and Elias walk, play, climb, etc.--she places a hand on their backs or grabs hold of their hand and is a bit overbearing! Kez especially dislikes her older cousin's disrespect of her independence.
Just when you think you've got Lydia figured out, she surprises you. Pa thinks she'll be an engineer or an architect or an astronaut--or who knows what! She is thoughtful and impulsive, affectionate and independent. She is sweet, loving, and helpful, but leaves no doubt in my mind that children are sinners from birth. Her curls and cuteness attract family and friends and strangers. But her passion and tenderheartedness and loyalty and fun--these are what I love more.
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