3.75 Lyra

My sweet Lyra is almost 4! Oh how I love my girl. She's so helpful and caring, wild and fun. Lyra has really turned a corner in listening and helpfully helping. She seems to enjoy having a baby brother a lot more these days and will play with him more often. She still will carry him to the other side of the room when he tries to play with her dollhouses, but she's gentle about it. She wants so desperately to help and I'm trying to give her more opportunities to do this without stressing so much about her accidentally strangling Rodrick or laying a wake of destruction. Lyra has always adored having an older brother and still does. She and Rowan are inseparable most days. They play together super well most of the time and are little side-kicks to one another. They're almost always better as a pair than separately. Rowan adds some reason and honesty to the mix so they aren't constantly getting into things they shouldn't. They do fight and WOOF, it kills me sometimes. I've discovered physically pulling them apart is an instant tempering of emotions whereas my previous method of shouting "STOP" a whole bunch was wildly ineffective.

She still has her wild side for sure. She gets more berserk and hyper the tireder she is and then she'll turn super violent once she passes over the hyper-stage of exhaustion. Like a cat violent. She'll suddenly slap you across the face and then hide away. When she gets really upset, she'll run out of the room to go find a place to calm down. It's actually pretty emotionally mature of her to do this without prompting and I'm grateful so came to it naturally. Speaking of things coming naturally, she really is easy in so many ways. Lyra can self-play with toys for HOURS. Uninterrupted hours of her just playing contentedly by herself. I'll join her sometimes, but she seems to enjoy her own creative time. 

Lyra is so social! It's just amazing to me how drawn to people she is and how much she enjoys being around them. The other day on our way in to church she saw a little friend of hers and started running after her in her little Elsa heels "Sunday! It's me! It's Lyra! You know me!" and then caught up with her. She also has a razor sharp memory for names of friends. We saw another friend on our way into a playgroup before the world ended, someone she sees every month or so and yelled out the window "Lydia! It's so nice to see you again!" She has ZERO fear of talking to people and often will beeline it anywhere there are people. We went to the park today and some older teenage boy were playing basketball. She zoomed off that direction, walked up to them and said "I want to play, friends!" I hustled her out of there real quick. She can be so incredibly endearing because of her friendliness, amiability, humor and kind-heart, but PLEASE exhibit some caution in life, child. 

Lyra is so smart and so busy. I bought a book from The Good and The Beautiful to do with her when I'm doing homeschool with Rowan. It's really cute and focuses on just learning the alphabet and numbers. She has a lot of trouble sitting still and simply doing the book for the sake of doing the book. I've had to be way more creative to get her to start to recognize letters. She's improving, but still has plenty of learning to do (don't we all). It's been a real learning experience for me to see how different my kids are in the way they absorb information. Rowan's always loved a good educational-geared game, but he also really thrives on check-boxes and prizes. He wants to go exactly in order in his book and do everything on the page to perfection. Lyra wants to color on whatever page she wants and if she doesn't care much for a game, walks away to play with something else. She's young, but Row was already getting into star charts and such at this age. A good illustration of their differences are the way they run and use their money. Whenever Lyra has even a little money in her money jar, she would like to go shopping at Target. Immediately. Rowan will hoard that money in there for years to fill it up to the top. When they run on the treadmill, Lyra will set it to 10 and sprint until she can't anymore. Rowan sets it to a 4 or 5 and makes sure he finishes exactly when he completes whatever number of laps he decided to do. Lyra also is a really gifted little singer. I hope to help her with this as she grows since I'm not. I'd also love to put her in gymnastics, but we've worried before about her spina bifida occlude. If she were to land on her back in a bad/weird way, it could be crippling for her potentially. It's hard to brush it off and let her pursue it (Because I think she could be SO good) when I know I'd just worry the further she went in the sport. 

Speaking of Target, this girl was born to shop. She LOVES it. She'll just throw any toy, purse, dress, make-up, shiny thing in the cart and ask me relentlessly for everything in the store. She has a really good eye for fashion too. I'm always a little impressed with how she owns her little style. Lyra is the girliest girl out there. She already has a multi-stage outing routine. She wants to put on all the make-up, paint her nails, wear high-heels, put some fancy shades on, accessorize. The only thing she really hates doing is her hair. It makes me sad because her hair is finally getting long enough to do more styles with, but she'll stare at me defiantly and pull it out the second I'm done. I think it hurts her a little so I can't really blame her. Her hair is still super fine and doesn't grow much on the top of her head. 

One of the things I love most about her is how she rubs my arms when I'm cuddling her or sad. She's just so tender and loving. She's had a nurturing soul since she was itty bitty. I try to realize often that all she wants from life is to be with me, play with me, cuddle me, talk with me. Her needing me shouldn't feel burdensome, but a privilege. My heart aches for the day she won't want me first. I don't want to regret not living fully in this precious time of her life with her. I can already feel time slipping  through my fingers like sand. Slow down please!I think often of Lyra's blessing day and how Mike and my Dad said she just smiled up at the ceiling like she was beaming at heaven the whole blessing. She is a special little girl, pleasant and charming and unique. I love that Heavenly Father sent this little spit-fire to me.

Lyra had so much fun at Disney! She loved the roller coasters the most and princesses second. She got this cute little makeover and it was a dream come true. She was being so goofy though and her fairy godmother had to ask for my assistance getting her to sit still more than once. eye roll.
Lyra had gone up to a cute little girl at Disney Springs a few days before our Magic Kingdom trip who had clearly been to the boutique and complimented her on her dress and makeup. The girl was so sweet and gave Lyra the make-up they send them home with. It changed Lyra's whole world to get make-up from someone. I told the girl she was a true princess because she was kind.

I love this picture so much! I know I should crop out the part of it being a screenshot, but I'm lazy and tired. I love how free she seems running barefoot in her cute cream dress with little pom-poms on it

She can love aggressively sometimes. This is her kissing, hugging and licking me a whole bunch the other day