Lyra Rose is ONE

My wonderful little girl is ONE! It is truly hard to grasp time when you're a parent. It feels so very recent that I held her sweet, freshly-born self against my chest and yet it's been ages since she's been that small and new. It's gone faster this time, much to my dismay. 

365 days of life later, Lyra's little personality she had on day 1 is still there. I was rewatching her birth this week and realized how she was herself the whole time. Isn't that strange to look back and see how strong personality was the whole time? She came out SCREAMING. Absolutely enraged. When Sel passed her to me though and she nuzzled her peachy-soft cheek against mine, she calms almost immediately. Lyra is not quiet about the times she is upset, but she calms quickly. She will only cry at max for five minutes when going to sleep whereas Rowan could go for hours (and still could). Lyra throws some major shade to whomever she blames for her upsetness. The looks she can give really are SO similar to my Grandma L's. Lyra is a lot of my mom's side in looks and personality. We needed another Edgar representative since those numbers were small to start with. 

Lyra's eyes are still intent on being free of check-box colors. She will wake up with brown eyes, have green by breakfast, blue by lunch, and grey by dinner. I loooove her eyes. I was telling my family recently more about the character I created for Harry Potter and how she also had magic eyes. Harry got to have his Lily (see what I did there) green eyes talked about every other page and the only way I could make my character feel equally special was to create someone with eyes of changing colors. It feels a little "Stranger than Fiction" to me.

She operates in her own little world. While she truly enjoys people, she seems happy to be doing her own thing without the need for others. Lyra is a climber. Yesssh. She is a wild one. She continually wants to be around the action though not a part of it all. She likes to find perches to observe and scales impressive heights to do so. Sel said the other day how often Lyra reminds him of a small animal and I wholeheartedly agree. She's a bit like a koala bear. Adorable and squishy looking, but will rip your face off if you make it mad. Literally rip your face off. (i.e. YouTube where koala rips man's face off). Lyra will claw at our faces with her claws if she's mad and bit my cheek the other day at church when I wouldn't let her go to the pulpit. She also bit a girl on the arm who was on the slide she wanted to be on. Strong-willed children are good to have is a lesson we are learning twice over now. 

While vicious at specific times, I'd say her overall personality is a sweet one. She's not particularly friendly, mostly she stares at people unblinking to the point of deep discomfort (she does this to me too). When she does smile though, WOW! Her eyes sparkle and pure joy fills the whole room. Sel said he thinks she times her hugs to 10 seconds as she gives some truly heart-melting hugs to those picked to be in her inner circle. She's gentle with babies and will love on any stuffed animal or baby doll she can find

She's quite tall. I don't know what percentile she is since we haven't found a pediatrician in Omaha yet, but based on the kids she plays with close to her age, she tends to be on the taller end. She feels so light and her baby chub is slowly melting away (noooooo). Stay squishy awhile longer my busy-bodied baby. 

New this month:

* Lyra is running now. I love to crawl on all fours and growl at her so I can watch her adorable quickened baby steps away from me. She'll screech then do this little head duck so I can't tickle her neck. Tag will be a favorite with this one. 

*She still folds are arms to pray and has started to say something that sounds like "Amen!" at the end of them. 

*I do the itsy-bitsy spider while changing her diaper and she likes to sign it with me while I do. Diaper changes are still terrible, though Sel somehow manages to keep her still double what I can. 

*Signing is equal I'd say to Rowan's at this same age. She can do around 40 signs and can learn one within minutes. Lyra has had the one-finger point down since she was 4 or 5 months so she does a really excellent job of signs that require more fine-motor skills. She loves the Baby Signing Time theme song and will shake around when it comes on. 

* She loves to dance and it honestly takes 2 notes only to get her shaking her money maker. We've been trying to do a family devotional each night and as soon as we hint we are singing a song, she starts wiggling. 

*She has started to blow kisses and I can hardly handle it. It's so sweet!

* She is speaking actual words more and more. Momma, Dada, and Row-row are spoken multiple times a day. Lyra believes she is also meant to parent Rowan. When I call to him or say his name sharply, she'll follow behind me saying his name over and over. 

*  She loves to bark at anything that is an animal and she'll scrunch up her nose and sniff when she sees flowers. Her nose scrunch is still such a beloved part of her personality. 

*Lyra still loves Rowan. Just tonight he tried to rescue her from the pack-n-play after I put them both down for bed. They both tend to happily do their own thing, but when their paths do cross, it tends to be a positive, bonding-type of interaction. 

* I worry that I haven't given Lyra enough vegetables the way we did Rowan, so hopefully she'll still like them when she's older. She eats pretty much the same thing she has since starting solids: avocados, tomatoes, noodles, rice, applesauce, bananas (she loves to sign for this and plead for them), etc. Her nursing is becoming more sporadic. One day she'll nurse twice and others it's close to six times a day. I have no desire to stop anytime soon and I'm positive she doesn't either. 

*When she throws a tantrum, she throws her head back and lays on the floor. Not always crying which is the stranger part of the tantrum. She'll just look up at the ceiling and make some scrunched up face of annoyance or frustration. She's almost cracked her skull open a few times doing this so I bought her a baby helmet for her birthday. (I didn't, but I probably should have). 

A different theme has been constant in both pregnancies and transferred on to each child. With Rowan, I felt him comforting me, assuring me everything was going to be alright. A general feeling of him emphasizing with me. With Lyra, it was a feeling that "we'd be keeping this one" and an overall sense of calm happiness. She has brought so much calm happiness to our lives and I'm grateful everyday she decided to keep us. Each child truly does come with their own delightful package of love making life feel more full. I feel privileged to be the mother to such a special little girl and can't wait to see what the years ahead look like with Lyra. Happy Birthday Sweet Rosebud! 

6 Months

7 Months

8 Months (The end of the blanket pictures. I'm so sad I didn't  keep it up every month, but there are hundreds of pictures in my phone of her at least)

9 months

10 Months

11 Months 

ONE!