Lyra-isms and Creepy Crawlies

Some of you may remember that Lyra spent many months in speech therapy over the last year. For some reason, she was not interested in talking. I know it is typical with children who have older siblings not to be able to get a word in edgewise or to have someone else always finishing their sentences for them. But I never quite bought that explanation for Lyra because Will and Eva spent so much time in school that she is, for much of the year, more like an only child than the youngest. She did make a lot of progress and stopped her sessions this fall. We can now better appreciate what is going on in her mind and all the funny things she says.

Lyra understands opposites and sometimes comes up with her own ways to express these. She asks us to "buckle me in my car seat" and then to "buckle me out." "Blow up the balloon" and then "Blow it down."

She Totally got the halloween concept and was excited to Trick or Treat for weeks and weeks before. Finally, on Halloween night, she us she was going trick or trating but that KC couldn't go. I asked her why just because I wanted to hear her answer. She said, "KC doesn't have a bag!" That cracked us up. It wasn't because KC is a cat or that he's not allowed outside; it was because of something that we could have easily fixed if it were the real reason. She probably chose that because neither Will nor Eva could find their usual and favorite trick or treat bags and were, at that moment, tearing up the house looking for them.

Lyra's articulation is still in development. She says "Cris-em" for Christmas, "base-em" for basement and, as Will and Eva did before her, "nack-em" for napkin. But these are easy enough to translate. Her most shining verbal moment recently was finding a centipede (eeeeeewwww!) and coming to tell me about it. "Mommy! There is a big bug next to Daddy's attic! It is BIG. There are lots of lines! Mommy come see!" Mommy was less than enthusiastic but Daddy wasn't home.

There was, in fact, a hideous intruder inside the doorway to the attic stairs (so it was work to find it). And you know what? It Was big and there Were lots of "lines," i.e., legs and long antennae. Some of you may have read on Facebook that I've been paying Will $5 to kill these things. We never had more than one a year until recently. Apparently they come indoors in the fall. I am hoping for a big ole cold snap because Will's services are getting expensive. He disposed of the creepy crawlie for a fee and Lyra got a $1 "finder's fee." She was so pleased!