Lyra 2.5

Lyra at two and a half is best described as an adorable wild animal. She is hysterical! I find it so hard to not laugh when I should be disciplining because she disobeys in such a comedic way. The other day, I watched her dig in my diaper bag, grab out a snack and then scurry quickly to the back of the van so I couldn't snatch it away from her. She loves to find hiding places to watch everyone from.

She's a light little thing. Picking her up is not hard. I distinctly remember how hard it was to heft Rowan while pregnant, but she's luckily not. I was a little surprised at her most recent wellness check that she was in the 25% for weight. Both of my kids started so high in the percentiles as babies and then slowly dropped each appointment. She was in the 70% for height which is just slightly down from what she was at her 2-year-old appointment. She's officially potty-trained! We did a very slow transition to it. Lyra has such an opposite personality to Rowan in regards to potty-training. Rowan decided he wasn't going to wear diapers anymore a little after his 2nd birthday and would LOSE it if he ever had an accident. Lyra, however, would pee or poop in her underwear and care 0%. She'd say "I peed Mommy!" and throw her dirty pants on the ground and walk away. She would do amazing for awhile and then have three days in a row of accidents. We traveled for the holidays and she just 100% figured it out. I haven't done really much at all in the way of training with either of them. I just sort of let them figure it out themselves which is probably why it was ineffective with Lyra. I'm just grateful she figured it out before the new baby comes. She even wipes efficiently all by herself and loves to wash her hands.

Her favorite things: getting chased, tackling/teasing/attacking Rowan (who responds so amazingly to it and almost seems to like her poking him 24/7), eating straight butter and sugar, peas, green apples, cheese, bananas (but only as a delay to bedtime tactic), frozen berries, green smoothies, avocados anything pink or purple, purses, dolls, ponies, MAKE-UP. Gahhh. She is so obsessed with make-up. She has destroyed countless things of lipstick, blush and eyeshadow. She has an innate sense of fashion and accessorizing. It's always funny to me because I really don't wear much jewelry, never wear heels, don't have a purse, or wear much more than mascara. Yet, my daughter has a full knowledge of what it means to put on the Ritz. I'm not sure how she learned it all, (Probably Sel ;) ) but I love it. It's so fun to see her find such joy in being a girly girl. She loves to help in the kitchen and is quite the sous chef. I love when she drags her stool over to the counter and asks to help making food. Rowan used to love this too and has since lost interest. She swooped in to fill his gap. Playdough! Oh how she loves playdough. Lyra is most content when drawing, painting, coloring, etc. She just loves to sit there and create things. It makes her so easy to entertain. At least it does, until she demands I am the one who should draw every member of her extended family with the appropriate accessories. She also always wants me to make crazy things with playdough that my artistically lacking self never could. Lyra's favorite show is...watching people open presents on YouTube. It's so dumb and I hate that I let her watch it. Her favorite is one where this guy opens playdough. She's learning so much (eye roll). She adores taking long, hot showers after swimming at the gym. She often takes a 15-20 minute shower before I cut her off. Lyra calls going to the gym her "school" and refers to all the childcare workers as teacher. She's SO eager to go to school. I luckily got her into one that starts in the Fall and I can hardly wait to watch her zoom out of the car with her backpack. Rowan, on the other hand, has informed me he would like to not go to school anymore after this year. He was pretty overwhelmed at the idea that his dad just finished going to school less than two years ago and that he would spend the majority of the next two decades going to school.

Things she hates: being told she can't stick her hand down my shirt, sleeping in her own bed the whole night, soda, keeping things in their proper place, not being able to go to pre-school with Rowan,

Cute things she says/does: 'Yesserday" means anything in the past tense, when she first wakes up she'll give me a kiss and say " I love you mom! You're my best friend. And daddy is my best friend. And Mimi is my best friend and Papa is my best friend, etc" It's adorbs. She'll grab my face and go "you cute, cute cute mommy" in this high-pitched voice. She'll say something is cute if it's tiny. We've been watching Pokemon lately and she loves to say "PIIIKKAAAA CHOOOOO". She loves to sing still and does a surprisingly good job remembering lyrics and getting the right tune. Lyra loves hair and doing other people's hair. Her favorite is to pretend she's the evil mother from Tangled and, while brushing my hair, tell me it's too dangerous to go outside. She is an ACTRESS. Born for the stage. We did a nativity pageant with my extended family over Christmas and she took it SO seriously. People were laughing at one point and she said "Stop! Issnot funny!" while making her most regal, serious face in her portrayal of Mary.

I love parenting Lyra. She's incredibly sweet, the funniest girl on the block, and beautiful in absolutely every sense of the word. We are pretty lucky that she's our girl

Wearing her new dress-up dress and coloring 

She made playdough earrings at church one day and did her nails with playdough too 

Wasn't our photographer AMAZING?! She managed to catch so much of who are kids are in such a short amount of time. AND it was freezing cold and they were not cooperative for a giant chunk of it. 

We stayed home today from pre-school and "gym" school. The kids wanted to be ninja turtles so I painted their faces and Lyra was so funny looking at her face on the camera 

Her personality in a nutshell. All the accessories, high heels, a princess dress, toys stuffed in a purse and playing with dollies

Being cute and goofy with her aunt