Lydia's Boa

Our two-year-old granddaughter, Lydia, is positioned to set this world on fire.A diamond set between two hard-as-rock boys, this fearless little girl is as delicate and ladylike as an old fashioned Snow White (NOT the Snow White portrayed by that sulking vampire-lover) but also holds her own in every category.

One day when the kids were at work with us, my daughter Alicia and I struggled to put a giant air conditioner into a back window. While the boys watched Bambi on the DVD player, Lydia quietly observed her mother and me for quite a time before deciding the coast was clear. She stealthily swiped a screw driver and a screw from our little pile of tools and commenced to patiently installing the screws into a metal part laying on a shelf.

Lydia is a problem-solver. She accesses situations and determines how best to proceed. She arranges her toys to suit her even if it takes great effort. She pushes her baby carriages and shopping cart through mazes of toys and furniture and, if needed, lifts them over any and all obstacles. She almost always has a baby doll in tow -- she's an excellent mother, an excellent mother -- but still manages to handle all the other domestic issues that present themselves to her all while looking stylish and behaving like a lady.

She's bold. She's fearless. She funny. She's loving. She's spunky. She's ornery. She's bright. She's quick. She's sweet. She's bigger than life.

A couple weeks ago our church hosted a family reunion and had various small animals and reptiles brought in from a reptile farm somewhere around St. Louis. Lydia petted the alligators and iguanas and stroked the hedge hog and exclaimed about the tarantulas. Then, in her fluffy-cotton-candy dress, she tried on the boa, happily engaged with the handler and Princess the Python for about ten minutes.

How do we become who we are? Are we born a certain way or do the sum of our experiences -- and how we interpret them -- make us into the people we are?

Who will Lydia be in ten years? In twenty? In fifty?

She'll be the girl with the hat and the dress and the shoes and the boa, that's who.

And she will be magnificent.