Lyra Rose 8 Months

Little Lyra girl; the girl who is just happy to be here. Sel used that phrase, just happy to be here, to describe Lyra's personality way back in October when we went to Florida. It so perfectly captures her! As long as she is around people to watch, she's completely content. She is a stroller and a cart baby. Do you know what that means? It means she sits in both of those things. Happily. Without wriggling and screeching to get out. If I bend down to hug or kiss her, she will reach out to me to get her out. If I don't pick her up, she'll make a little sound of displeasure and then go back to being happy. 

She's also starting to show her crazy more these days. I have a very strong suspicion she is going to be a wild toddler. A different type of wild than Rowan, but no less easy. She is adorably aggressive. She lunges and tackles Rowan with reckless abandon. Both of our sweet neighbor boys (one is 18-months and the other is 1 day younger than Lyra) cry when she tries to touch them. It's a little sad, but I know deep down they will all be BFF's someday. The other day Sel was loading her in the car and she was trying to give him a "love" pat the whole time. After she was finally buckled, he leaned in closer to give her a kiss and she clawed his nose. 

She's an efficient little crawler now and is scary close to walking. I keep hoping she waits at least until Rowan did (10 months). She can stand unassisted for a good chunk of time now and is constantly pulling up on things and exploring. She really is a whole new brand of baby for us. Her favorite thing to play with while I'm making dinner are the drawers. She'll pull them open while standing then teeter around a bit, try and explore the drawer, then slam her finger in it. No tears. Sometimes a small puff of frustration. The other day she had her finger caught in one of the drawers and it left a sad little owie around her tiny finger. No tears again. 

She eats like a champ. Her favorite things are those she can meticulously pick up one-by-one. Rice, peas, green bean. I am constantly wanting to eat Indian food and she loooves it. She'll just sit back and pound curry, tikka masala, channa masala, you name it. We also discovered a delicious marinara sauce that has four ingredients in it (none of them being a sweetener of any form) and I feed it to her as if it was baby food. Tomato's might just be her fav food. She LOVES her bottle. I realized she was only nursing maybe two times a day for awhile and tried to force her to eat more during the day in hopes it would help her sleep better at night. She gets to easily distracted by that fun-loving bro of hers. We found a solution and it's pure bliss. I just hand pump about 5 ounces a day and she'll guzzle her bottle while being able to look at all the fun things instead of my chest. During all of our road trips, I would be able to pass her back a bottle of milk whenever she got fussy and she would down it all by herself. She starts to look drunk near the end and it's hilarious. Her eyes will be closed and her sweet mouth will open wide while she tries to balance the bottle in one hand. 

She is a dream road trip baby still. She power naps for hours on end without a peep. As soon as the car stops moving though, she's wide awake. I started to realize during our trips that times I normally think she is asleep, she is actually just staring out at Rowan until her eyes start to droop closed again. I was so intense about Row's nap schedule. It was a giant world crisis if he didn't get down for his two naps a day around the same time every. single. day. I think I needed him to do that more then. Adjusting to motherhood of two really is a smoother ride. Lyra tends to catch a morning nap in the car on the way to the gym or whatever errand/fun thing we have. I've started to be more insistent that we are back at the house for three hours at least for her to catch a nap. It can happen now since our lives aren't going to be uprooted every other week anymore. The naps do make a GIANT difference for bedtime. Lyra will sleep 5-6 hour stretches if she gets a solid nap in during the day. Otherwise it's a guaranteed awful night. We still don't have her figured out with sleep, but she is doing mostly good at 8 months. Sel went in the other night to comfort her and she. went. back. to. sleep! Miracle! 

I realized the other day she is a third generation L (that skipped a generation)- My grandma L (Linda), then me, and now her. I kind of hope she has a child someday and names it something that starts with L.

She has started to sign a little back. She will sign again when I throw her on the bed because this is her favorite activity in the world. She signed more a few times, but not consistently yet. She'll just whine if I ask her if she wants milk and lunge at my chest. Lyra claps her hands excitedly if you say "yeah!" and she's started to do this really amped up version of waving hi. She pumps her hand up and down and up and down with an extraordinary amount of exuberance. She likes to do it when we Facetime people the most. Rowan exploded in signing two months from now and I think she will be about there in that same time frame. 

She does this awful thing while nursing that is driving me insane. It's like fingernails on a chalkboard, except the chalkboard is my chest. She loves to pinch the skin on my boobs while nursing. While it isn't necessarily painful, it makes me want to rip my hair out. She is so funny when you have her stop doing something. She'll stare you straight in the face and do it over and over agin and then let out a fake cry with the best pouty face I've ever seen. It's impressive. Rowan noticed all the little milk tracks on my chest and tried to find me bandaids for my owies. I'd for sure prefer her biting me (which she has done plenty in the past) than her skin pinching. 

She loves to rip glasses off of people's faces. I know most baby's do, but it's her speciality. She is also an earring-puller savant. Row would pull any dangly earrings I wore, but I was always safe to stick with studs. Lyra can, in one swift movement, rip out my stud and put it in her mouth. ONE movement. While talking with some ladies about Birmingham in the nursing lounge the other day, Lyra just reached up and grabbed both earrings with both hands and popped them in her mouth. She is always trying out new ways to die. 

We love our sweet Lyra Rose! 

Eating sticks at the art museum during playgroup

At the top of the science museum in Nashville. 

Papa and Lyra at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History. She loves her grandparents SO much! She'll freak out when she sees them on Facetime and start laughing. 

Her and her beloved bottle 

My favorite picture from Month 8. She is SOOOOO happy in this picture.  We were at the Pittsburg science museum and it was one of the coolest we've been to this year! 

Water bear

Throwin some shade during lunch with my family