Lyra Rose 5 Months

This girl is so beautiful! I fall more in love with her every minute. She's such a good-natured soul with a heart of gold. 

* Lyra loves her feet. She loves to hold them both in her mouth and roll around like a crazy gymnast. She can also toss things up to her mouth or hands that she can't quite get to otherwise with her feet. It's seriously impressive. 

* Her eyes are gorgeous. They are some combination of blue, green, grey and gold. One seems distinctly darker than the other which is what my mom has going on too. They are also so expressive! She can tell us so much with those sparkly eyes. Rowan would get compliments most on his smile and she gets the most about her bright eyes. 

* While there is for sure a similarity in looks between baby Rowan and baby Lyra, she looks a great deal like my little sister did as a baby. We all know what a babe my sister ended up, so I'm pretty stoked Lyra seems to be following that gene bandwagon. 

Cheap Chipolte Day. Lyra has started to hate her carseat. She'll arch her back and try and pop out of it when I put her in. I guess I can't say she hates her carseat, she mostly seems to hate getting in it. Once she's all strapped in, she's as content as always. 

I had no idea what to do with the kids when we went back to my "hometown" in Michigan. It's in quotations because I lived there 9th-12th grade then my family moved to Ohio and I was left without a place I could really say I was from. Since I was there for highschool, some of my fav parts about Rochester weren't overly exciting to a two-year-old and infant. My genius plan was to take them on one of my favorite runs which wasn't very long. The total hike is about two miles and you can't exactly take a stroller (see sand, mud, and rocky trails). I envisioned us walking merrily along the path admiring the beauty of my old backyard. While that did happen to an extent, the return mile was pure torture. Rowan was exhausted and demanded to be carried. Carrying his 30 pound self plus her 17 pound self for almost a straight mile (with lots of needed breaks) inspired me to lift weights more. 

*She doesn't sleep anymore and it breaks my heart. She got a cold while in Florida and it hasn't been the same since. It's not awful the way Rowan was, it's just once sometimes twice a night opposed to every 90 minutes. She has gotten better at longer naps now that night sleeping has been offered up on the alter of my sanity. 

*She LOVES Rowan still. Will laugh hysterically at whatever silly thing he is doing. I can get her to giggle when I tickle her tummy with my face, but I nor anyone else can produce the true laughter that Rowan gets out of her. She also really adores my mom. Lyra almost always lets out a breathy chuckle when she sees her. 

* She such a patient, long-suffering little gal. Rowan is mostly gentle, but sometimes will go and hit or kick her because he's mad at me or wants attention. It's so infuriating and it absolutely gets my attention. Sweet Lyra very rarely cries when he attacks her. The other day he stood above her and then abruptly sat on her. I was already on my way across the room when I saw him standing above her, but before I was able to yank him off of her she started laughing. Laughing about essentially being punched in the stomach. Rowan insisted he be allowed to do it again because "sister like it".

She just fell asleep in my arms during a walk. Dream baby. 

They were both mesmerized by my parent's fireplace. Also how crazy does his bony back look next to her rolly back? 

Her 5-month "photo shoot" left much to be desired. I was distracted and felt like getting it done right away for some reason. National Geographic called recently to sign me as a photographer, but I had to pass it up for lack of time. 

 * Her pouty, pre-cry face is money. I almost wish she were a fussier baby simply so I could see those lips pucker and that forehead wrinkle in the most delicious fashion.

* She can sit up unassisted for about 30 seconds at a time. She usually has to be mega-focused on a toy within arm's reach otherwise she sets her sights on something else and topples over. She is getting closer to figure out how to balance on all fours. She can push herself up from the front and can tuck her knees under her, but not at the same time yet. 

* She sings herself to sleep. She makes these little cooing sounds right before she conks out and they take cute to the next level. 

* She completely understands the sign for milk. She will start laugh-crying if I do it when she's extra hungry and just start head-butting my chest. 

* Her baby kisses are what I am living for right now. She will suck on my cheek or chin and I just. can't. handle. it. The slobber makes it all the more delicious. 

* We let her try some sweet potatoes this last week and she pounded them. She ate the entire 4 oz which did not seem normal from my memory of baby Rowan.

Just some RobotUnicorn breakfast time. 

* The day Lyra got her shots, she woke up from a nap and did the cutest little eye-roll smile at Sel when I brought her downstairs. We both laughed at how hysterical it was, but then she wouldn't stop doing it when she smiled. It started to be a bit concerning to both of us and Dr. Google told us she could be having little seizures. I called the Pediatrician expecting them to tell me to stop surfing the internet, but they insisted I come in and have her looked at. It started to break my heart every time she smiled because I couldn't stop worrying that something was neurologically wrong with her. The pediatrician did the exact same check up she'd had the day before and obviously didn't find anything concerning. I feel peds/family med docs can be quite limited in their abilities to do anything past the basic. I know they are trained to only catch things through basic checkups and refer out to specialists, but I would personally find it frustrating as a doctor to not really be able to assure my patients/parents of patients that everything is fine or to not feel like I was easily missing something serious.  Lyra did her weird eyeroll/flutter thing and the doctor got creepily quiet. She told me to keep track of her for 48 hours and we would schedule an EKG if she kept doing it. Luckily it stopped the next day. I think she was just extra tired from all of her traveling/shots/having a two-year-old brother. It made me reflect on how miraculous it is that any child is ever "perfectly healthy".

* She kicks her legs constantly. When she lays on her tummy, she contently kicks those legs. When she sees someone she loves while I'm holding her, she kicks her legs like she's sprinting in the olympic games. She even pumps them somewhat in time to music when it's playing. 

* I've been doing a scripture study guide I snagged from thesmallseed.com and it is so incredible how an attitude of gratitude can change the way I feel and the way my day goes. It makes every small thing my children do something to be in awe of. Even Lyra's little toots are so, so adorable to me. I am so grateful for her health, her smiles, her laughs, her rolls, her growing abilities, her intelligence and THOSE CHEEKS. Thank heavens for chubby-cheeked babies. 

Lyra Rose 4 Months

(Things have changed since wrote this, which makes sense since she's almost 5 months. Tear. Our life is crazy from now until January 15th so who knows if I will get the chance to document much. We will be in Toledo for four days in November, zero in December).


Slow down! Slow down! Puhleease slow down and give me more time to savor this little girl. I feel like time goes even faster with her than it did with Row because I already know a little of what to expect this time around. 

Lyra is such a good-natured, tender little babe. I adore her, nay worship her. She's better than I deserve. 

She is tearing her milk suppliers up lately though. Ly gets so distracted and excited by everything. She'll latch then turn her head to look at the world. Ouccchie. It's not my fav thing, but I'll take it if I get to cuddle her multiple times a day and not pay for formula. 

Trying to eat my salad 

So much love

A lil pumpkin 

 She can roll all across the room to get to a toy. Her favorite thing of all time is to watch Rowan. She laughs hysterically at him when he interacts with her. Row likes to lay on top of her and is still learning to be gentle, but you wouldn't know he ever hurts her because she loves him so much! She rarely cries still. She "sings" herself to sleep when she's extra tired. Lyra doesn't really nap very long unless we are in the car. We've been traveling a lot lately and she will essentially sleep anytime the car is moving. She has started the four-month regression which means no more 12 hour sleep stretches. I'm not complaining because it is nowhere near to as awful as Rowan was for...25 months. She typically goes down around 8:30pm and wakes up once around 3:00/4:00am to eat then will wake up about every hour from then on. 

Her cousin Macy showing her toddler love. She told me her cheeks were really fat 

On It's a Small World in her Cinerella onsie from Aunt Kari

She loves this guy as much as I do

 She is tearing her milk suppliers up lately though. Ly gets so distracted and excited by everything. She'll latch then turn her head to look at the world. Ouccchie. It's not my fav thing, but I'll take it if I get to cuddle her multiple times a day and not pay for formula. 

Her cousin Violet and her are only two days apart! It's so fun and I'm sure it will be  a blast for her as she gets older 

Beach Babe 

 This might be my favorite stage of all babytime. She's cuddly, smiley, and doesn't try to run away or choke on things. She never tells me no and seems to love spending any spare moment cooing up at me.

We had an adorable Snow White onsie my friend sewed that we took to Disneyworld. She was the sweetest princess 

Lyra tried rice cereal annnd didn't love it. She does love her Papa and Mimi though who have graciously allowed us to crash their pad for the past 6 weeks. 

I love these two blessings. It is such a joy to see all their similarities and differences and learn about the incredible little people they are. 

She LOVES dolls! Who knew gender differences show up this young. We only have one tiny baby doll that Row loved to call Little Sister before she came and I hadn't thought to let her play with it yet. An adorable toddler at a church event let Lyra borrow one and it was so tender. She cooed at it and caressed it's little head. 

Sort of how her mother and I's relationship is. Adeline smiling sweetly at the camera and Lyra punching her in the face while sporting a double chin. 

I'll never get over how much I love them loving one another 

She just oozes sweetness.

Row Boy

I feel like I haven't posted much about my first born lately. I figured I ought to write about all his wonderful bits to keep me centered on all the things that make Rowan a sweet, bright little boy instead of the age-related craze that comes from being two. 

I keep a running list in my journal of cute things these two babes of ours do and here are some favorites of mine for Rowboat from the last few weeks. 

*Sel has been reading Rowan the animated Book of Mormon at bedtime. Row really loves Alma and Jesus and will say "Like him! Like him!" then give them a kiss. He also always points out the Laminates wear diapers (loincloths).

*He loves running. I bet he could do cross-country or a kiddie 1-mile race soon. 

 We took him to the track the other night and he did awesome! He had to pump his little legs so much more than we did which made me respect him as a baby athlete more than I already did.

* He loves wrestling with Sel lately. I need to get a picture of his wrestling stance because it's perfection on two little legs.

* He knows all his friends AND their moms names. He talks constantly about his friend Isaac's mom, Becky, who once rescued him from a falling bike at the park.

* One of my favorite prayers he gave a few weeks ago " Thank you for Jesus. Thank you for zoo. Bless sister and mommy. Thank you a mommy. Thank you a pinky book. Thank you a minion shirt. Thank you a daddy and mommy and sister. Thank you a blank. Thank you a owies. Thank you a mommy and daddy and sister and mimi and papa. Thank you a stars. Thank you a hammer. Thank you a Piper and Lincoln and Valerie. Bless oats and mommy and sister. Bless Jesus. Thank you a toys. Please bless toys. Please bless no bad dreams. Name of Jesus Christ, AMEN!

* He's become SO brave! He went through a stage where he was suddenly afraid of everything, especially going down slides. We went to a free carnival the other weekend and he climbed up a GIANT wall (not the one I took a picture of here) and went down a big slippery slide without hesitation. He will now climb any and all ladders at the park and is pretty good at it until I start to panic about him falling.

* He asks to "cuddle mommy" all the time now when he wants to avoid bedtime. It's so sweet that it's hard to turn him down on such a request.

 * He loves when we tell him popular oral stories. His favs that he requests almost every nap and bedtime are Red Riding Hood and Cookie Man (Gingerbread man)

* When we tell him to watch for cars, he will start pointing to parked ones saying "there's one! There's one!"

* He gets SO excited when Mimi or Papa come home. He will scream, run around in circles and bang on the glass door that leads to the garage. (We are staying with my parents for a month while Sel does an away rotation here at OSU). He will also say sadly throughout the day "Papa's at work." Or "Mimi's at work" 

* When new people ask him his name, he now responds with his full name "Rowan Michael Warden" and then will laugh at the end. He says each part of his name slowly and deliberately and it's adorable. 

* I love his hair. We've gotten three compliments this week alone on his "perfect" hair. One of them said it was like Fred from Scooby Doo. 

* He is obsessed with his cousins. We went to Philly last week to visit his cousin Brian Jr. who he has been taking about eating donuts with for ages. He adored him and asked if we could bring him to Mimi and Papa's. He also talks about visiting Macy in Florida with rides and Princess and Stella for Christmas with Cookie Houses (Gingerbread houses)

Lyra Rose 3 months

Time is going by so quickly! Lyra gets cuter every day and her cheeks get more luscious. Let's talk about those cheeks. Rowan got a little chunky, but nothing like Lyra. I just want to munch on her cheeks alllll day. She's perfectly squishy and delicious. I'm not sure her current weight, but she sure isn't light. We get comments the most about the cheeks, followed by disbelief that she's as young as she is when she looks so substantial. She's stretching out of her 6 month clothes already 😭 I dont know why, but I assumed she would follow a more average growth trend than her brother did. Dumb. Now most of her seasonal clothes don't match up with her ever growing baby bod. Bless the beauties who donated clothes to the Lyra Rose foundation so she has some stylish options 

She's sweet as can be. Row always had to be held looking out at the world, whereas she is content to be carried around snuggled up against me😍 She has the most adorable smile and her laugh is hysterical. It's like a breathy giggle. She cries and laughs with pauses between each. Laugh. Silence. Laugh.

Lyra cries very rarely. She's still such a happy thing. When she does cry, it's frightening. Like I said, she'll be silent for a few seconds then start screaming. Right when you think it's done, the loudest is yet to come. Rowan dropped a shampoo bottle on her the other night, which understandably made her cry. She did her momentary stop then screamed again right when he was bending over giving her an apology hug. It surprised Row so badly that he started crying and yelled in her face, which led to a cascade of screaming at one another through angry tears. It was great. We haven't had too many moments like those but I have a feeling yelling at one another will only increase in frequency over the years. Or maybe we will hit the sibling jackpot and they will never, ever fight. 

She is still a beautiful sleeper. She almost always logs 8+ hours (8pm-4am), but does a solid 10 most nights. The only hiccup is that she is done, done done for the day around 8:00pm. She simply cannot make it any later. It makes it tricky with bedtime because that's usually when I am trying to wrangle Row into pajamas and attempting to read him a bedtime story. Bless Sel for being the best husband/dad ever. He usually takes over after bathtime so I can nurse Lyra to bed. I feel really blessed we've had our kids when we have during med school. The summer between year 1 and 2 was perfect to have Sel around with Row and 4th year has lent us his helping hands more than we would have any other year.

I love nicknames. It's another form of love language for me to give someone a nickname. I know some people hate them, but I can't help it. Lyra is commonly known as Ly Ly around here or Little L (which used to be my nickname around my grandma L). It's so cute to hear Rowan call her LyLy. 

She strong. Rowan was too, but she's already ahead of where he was. She can hold her head up really well and can roll from tummy to back and is scary close to turning from back to tummy. She likes to sleep with her head to the side which I think is giving her an advantage that way. I am just so far from ready for her to think about any movement past what she does right now. Why can't they just stay squishy and immobile for awhile? We are so in trouble when s

People always ask where we got her name. We usually say it's a constellation, which is true. There is a bit more to the story which she might hate me for somewhere down the road. When I was an HP fanatic(when my 12-year-old self whole heartedly belived Hogwarts was real) I realized JK had pulled a lot of names from constellations (Sirius, Draco, etc). I wrote in a character to the series who was everything I wish I was. I found the constellation Lyra and decided it was perfect for my character. I get a little weird talking about it because it takes geeky to the whole next level (though liking HP is actually cool since all things nerdy are now awesome by today's standards). It makes me happy thinking my daughter is already better in every way than my character is. Rose was my great-grandma's name who was beautiful, smart (one of the very few woman of her generation to get a college degree), loving, and faithful. A little bit more than people care to hear when they ask about her name, so constellation it is. 

She loves to have her head rubbed while she nurses still. It's my favorite. Her eyes roll back and she acts like nothing in the whole world could be better than having her fuzzy head rubbed. She is extra tender when she's nursing. She HAS to be touching me. She will stroke my chest or hand, but especially loves holding onto one of my fingers. She's the definition of precious 

Watching TV with Row

I love this little girl so very much! I had a moment the other day on the outdoor track remembering a phone call to OB. I was 39 weeks and hadn't felt her move for a long time. While walking around the track trying to get her to move, I started crying thinking about losing her. She was obviously totally fine, but I realized then and even more so now how desperately I needed her in my life. I remember being such an idiot and worrying about whether I would love her as much as Rowan (pretty common parent fear for a second). I love her just as much as I love her big bro.  It's like Sel's grandma has said, "each baby comes with their own love". 

Here's to another month of Lyra love! 

She loves to be carried around like this

Swinging in one of my outfits from infancy. She makes it look way better than I did. 

Ugh I thought she might like a change of pace than the usual stroller. Rowan then insisted on riding in the stroller instead of riding his bike. After fifteen minutes of changing everything up, Rowan decided he would rather run. That skirt is my favorite of all time though

Squish

Holding hands during our bedtime story 

At the Fulton County Fair with Papa. He's a baby pro

She loves eating her fingers and sometimes will gag herself with them

All the little kids at the gym daycare thought she was a baby doll and asked to play with her. I think it's the dress because it is SO cute! It's an 18-month one we inherited from a friend. I know she'll slim out as she gets older and can hopefully wear it again. 

She loved the Halloween outfit Grandma DeeDee sent her

I needed somewhere to set her after Row ran into this dumb balance beam at the park that he ALWAYS runs into. She did awesome at holding herself up and loved the swing.