The Journey of Parenthood…

Monthly Summary – August

Here’s a run down of Kye’s life in August:

Preparing for Blitzen: I LOVE that we decided to have our children this far apart, there are so many advantages to the age difference and one of them is how helpful Kye is with things. He really likes to help and has been a big part in everything we do for Blitzen. We bought the baby’s bookshelf and storage cube shelf and Kye helped put both of them together. What was even more precious was how PROUD he was of them and would show everyone what he built for his little brother or sister (and by everyone, I mean everyone from grandparents to the guys who came to fix the intercom system!).

 Zach is SO great about being patient with Kye while he “helps”

I’ve been allll about getting things done around here to get ready for Blitzen’s arrival and Kye’s been right along beside me! We went through most of his toys, especially the ones that will be age appropriate, and got new batteries for the ones that were dead and cleaned them so they will be like new. Kye literally spent over 30 min making sure each toy was wiped down perfectly. He’s going to be an awesome big brother!

I know once Blitzen arrives that we will be spending a LOT of time in the nursery. Up until now that door rarely gets opened so I’ve been trying to get Kye used to being in there. He knows it’s the baby’s room but has fun playing with his blocks and even testing out the crib. I don’t mind him doing those things and think it’s good for him to like his new siblings space and good for him to be used to spending time in there. Here’s a video of Kye enjoying the baby’s crib and telling me just whose crib it is.

 He likes to line up allllll his blocks (here’s a video of Kye playing with his blocks, counting them, and tell me his name and how old he is…or at least how old he claims to be)

 one of our, many, block creations

Once the bookshelf got put together I’ve been working on putting some of Kye’s board books into the nursery. He needs the shelf space in his room and the books will be good for Blitzen to have to read/chew on. Sitting in the closet with Kye reading the stories brought back SO many memories of us sitting in his old nursery closet looking through books together. I’m excited to have a little baby in my lap while Kye reads to us 🙂  Here’s a video of Kye reading the books in the nursery (I love it when he says “cute).

Glasses: Kye enjoys trying on glasses and hats. Other than that, he’s STILL not into dress up clothes! Ugh! Maybe someday 🙂 Here he’s showing off some worker glasses that Zach actually now wears when cutting wood for the storage shed.

 one cute nerd 😉

Cooking: Something Kye does really enjoy is helping in the kitchen. He enjoys cooking and I LOVE doing it together. It takes a little longer but I think things like that are so important to learn to do. One of the big things I’ve been “cooking” lately have been Coco-No-Bakes (thanks to my pregnancy craving!) and Kye is great at mixing the dry ingredients together for me. You have to do it with your hands so we sing “messy messy messy” while we do it 🙂

We also made our first family “homemade” (from the box) pizza this month! Pizza is one of Kye’s absolute favorite foods and he had a blast making it, but especially eating it!

Cleaning Up: Like I said, Kye’s been a HUGE help lately. Another area he “helps” is with cleaning up. He helps so well that it’s actually not helpful…he’ll sweep which is great (until he sweeps my pile of already swept stuff…) and he helps sort laundry and put it away which is great (except we’ll find random stuff in all our drawers and he enjoys taking EVERYTHING out of one drawer and putting it into another). I never discourage his help as he’s just developing a servants heart and that’s so valuable, but it does add a little extra work for me to go behind him and put everything back!

 Here’s a video of Kye cleaning up and saying it’s “nasty”

 after Kye “put away” stuff from Daddy’s drawer…

Dressing: Next school year Kye will have to be able to pull down his pants and underwear to use the bathroom and pull them back up on his own. I’m trying to go ahead and start practicing these skills with him. It’s a tough thing for a kid to master! I let him put on his own shorts one day and he ended up with both legs through one leg hole and it looked like a skirt 😉

Eating Times: Our best quality time each day is at the table. Kye and I eat all our meals together and I enjoy this time talking with him and even singing songs. He’s been HARDCORE into raisens lately, especially the yogurt covered ones. He always asks for “all of them” then dumps them out and eats some before putting them all back in. While I’m pregnant and trying to soak up rest time – this is a good time filler so it’s fine by me 🙂

We read two Bible stories each morning together, share things that happened at school at lunch, and talk about fun things we have planned for the next day at dinner. Such a happy boy!

Kye enjoys meal time so much that he’s started to ask if his friends/toys can join us at the table. I’m okay with them  “watching” him eat but don’t like to risk anything getting food on it or him playing with toys and being distracted from eating. The first time he ever asked was after we went to a used kids sale and I bought him a toy whale (which he insists on calling a shark). I thought it was cute how he wanted to feed the whale and let him do it at the table, once he started asking for other toys to join us, I changed to the “watch only” rule 🙂  Here’s a video of Kye sharing his lunch with his whale/shark.

 funny face

While we eat we enjoy watching our squirrels (we have two that are ALWAYS on our fence or eating our fallen pecans and we LOVE them, we even bought a squirrel feeder just for them to enjoy). We also enjoy watching our new bird friends. It took awhile for them to realize we had food out but now they know it and come quite often. We even get humming birds! I think of my Uncle Spear each time we bird watch together, he would have loved to hear about how much Kye enjoys it.

Coloring: Kye’s favorite activity is still coloring. We finally pulled out his easel and he enjoys having another place to color. We bought this easel at Ikea for $5 when I was pregnant with Kye!!! I totally wish we had one of those plastic ones with the clips and all but Zach says this one is fine so this is the one we’ll be having…

Games: Last Christmas we bought Kye a TON of games and this month he’s officially played just about all the ones he can master for his age. Cootie, Don’t Spill the Beans, Don’t Break the Ice, and Elefun. Elefun I got at a used kids sale and it’s a pretty big hit. Here’s a video of him “catching” the flowers

smelling the flowers

 ready to catch ’em!

Hands down his favorite though is Don’t Break the Ice. I LOVE how it’s an opportunity to teach taking turns and I especially love watching how hard he concentrates on hitting the blocks. Here’s a video of him showing off his breaking the ice abilities!

Copying Mommy: I’m home with Kye ALL day EVERY day. It’s very natural for him to want to be like me and copy things I do. This past Sunday he asked me to tie all his strings (from a beading thing I have for him as a church toy) around his wrist so he could wear a bracelet. Recently he brought along his church quiet book with us to dinner because he said it was his “purse.” I explained to him that boys don’t carry purses. His reply? “yes ma’am, BIG boys do!!!” He’s never asked for a doll or looked longingly at the girl toys in his magazines so I know it’s nothing feminine about him, he just admires his mommy and wants to be like me – which is SWEET!

Another way that Kye is starting to be like me is picture taking. You can tell he’s getting a picture pose and tilts his chin like I do haha. He also wants to join in on my weekly pregnancy pictures so I’ve taken a few of him with his friends too. 

He wanted a picture of himself with the drawing he did

 and some pictures like Mommy has

Smyrna: The last time Zach went on a business trip we decided a new method to help Kye behave while Daddy’s gone. It’s TOUGH on me without Zach here because Kye ADORES his daddy and they are so, so close that when he is gone Kye struggles. He gets bored with me and tends to misbehave worse when Zach’s away. I consider myself a strict disciplinarian but nothing I do can come close to the law that Daddy lays down! Last time Zach left we told Kye if he was good for Mommy the whole time Daddy was gone that he’d get a special prize. Wow. It worked like a CHARM. If he started to act up I’d remind him about the prize and he’d be fine. Zach came home to a great report from Kye’s behavior and game him his prize – a teddy bear Zach was given from an Aflac contact who works for the city of Smyrna. I know, random. Well we didn’t realize how MUCH Kye would like his prize and now he insists on sleeping with it. Ugh. It annoys me. I don’t like that he “has” to sleep with his pillow, blanket, and monkey and the last thing I wanted was to add another friend to the bunch. I’m hopeful it’ll be a short-lived phase and there will be no more stuffed animals as prizes when Daddy’s away!

Kye and Daddy had a fun day together when Zach got back…they love to match their outfits and they had a fun golf outing 🙂

Other Moments from August:

  • I asked Kye if Monkey needed to go to the potty and he said “no ma’am, he can’t. Monkey doesn’t have privates!”
  • He’s gotten very good about saying please and thank you and now expects to have a response when he uses them. He’ll say “I want milk please. NICE MANNERS” to make sure we are aware that he used his “nice manners”
  • As I mentioned, he adores his Daddy. While Zach was out of town Kye prayed, 100% on his own, and said “thank you for making Daddy the man.”
  • Kye will often ask where Daddy is and I’ll tell him that he’s at work making money for the family. Often times Daddy is “at work” but work is actually in his office upstairs. One day Kye found some change and threw it up the stairs and yelled “there is your money for work Daddy!”
  • When Kye gets in trouble for pitching fits he’ll let me know he’s done with the fit by saying “I’m done crying.” One day he got a boo-boo or something and cried and I went to comfort him and asked why he was crying and he said “Jesus cried too.”
  • He has started to have a need to stretch quite often, here’s a video of Kye stretching.
  • Kye is typically a GREAT sleeper but had a couple days where he struggled sleeping during his nap because he was adjusting to going to school (it’s rushed after school to get home, eat lunch, get in the bed so it’s a lot on him). He cried for an hour so I ended up going in to him and he asked me if we could pray. When he prayed he said “Jesus please help Kye go to sleep.” 
  • While Zach was out of town (a lot seems to happen when he’s gone huh?) I was bathing Kye. He has a bathtub basketball toy set so we were shooting hoops together. I was on fire and was making everything I attempted to make so I said “WOW Mommy’s awesome – she’s even better than Daddy.” Kye said “No ma’am Mommy’s a woman” haha
  • He will say the colors of things constantly but is still wrong about 90% of the time
  • Can follow 3 part instructions and remember instructions I have given him. He has a Nemo pump squirt thing for the pool and I told him he has to put it under the water, pull the lever back (to fill it), then spray it and he really does remember what I say and does it.
  • Speaking of his memory, he has a very good one. Randomly in the car recently he told me all about the piggy bank he broke months ago.
  • Instead of saying “I love you” when we ask him to before bed he’ll say “I love me!”
  • Whenever I make a mistake or knock something over Kye will quickly say “it’s okay Mommy, don’t cry”
  • He has asked Zach if he can wipe his own bottom and has started to help washing himself in the tub
  • He has started to try to play us against each other some too…he’ll come up to me all pitiful looking and say “Daddy doesn’t like me.”
  • Kye can count to ten, will say his name when asked what his name is, but still refuses to say he’s two when we ask him his age. He always says four (as you can see in this video)
  • We were cooking dinner one night and Kye was ignoring my request for him to help me so I asked Sadie (our dog) if she wanted to help. Kye then spoke up and said “Sadie can’t help Mommy, she doesn’t have fingers.”
  • Kye is “all boy” in that he adores just running. He runs and runs around the house constantly and also loves to hide. We play hide and seek together and he’ll count then say “here I come!” and try to find me. When it’s time to do something else he’s started to ask if he can run or hide “one more time.”
  • When Kye got in the car from school one day he showed me his new toy buy he got from the treasure box for good behavior and then said he wanted to pray and thank Jesus for the bug. So proud of his relationship with the Lord at such a young age!
  • He has started to be able to sing!!! I first noticed it on Zach’s birthday (you can see the video HERE) but since school has started he enjoys singing No More Monkeys Jumping on the Bed (video) and I’ve heard him in his room signing to his monkey while he waits to fall asleep. He also sings along to the opening of Veggie Tales (video).
  • Gramma taught Kye the “take your nose” game and Kye enjoys taking our noses from us
  • By the end of the month Kye would still say “I love me” but then we’d remind him to say “I love YOU” and he’ll now say “I love YOU mommy” (with a BIG emphasis on the you) and gets offended when I say “I love you Kye” I think he’s confused at what “you” means???
  • Kye can spell his name (which I credit to the fact that his name is THREE letters) and enjoys “drawing” his name often. Here’s a video of him spelling and drawing it.
  • I will ask Kye animal sound questions and one say I asked him what several animals said then I asked him “what does Kye say?” This video is what he replied. He makes this sound all the time and neither Zach or I can make it?
  • Something I’m still SO glad we did is Tiny Bubbles. Seeing Kye swim makes me so happy and both Zach and I so proud. He’s a little fish!!! Daddy, of course, plays much rougher with him in the pool than I do but Kye loves every second of it and often prays and thanks Jesus for “the pool.” Here’s a video of my TWO year old child going nuts in the pool. We ran into Mrs. Margie at the mall recently and right away he asked if he could go swim with her 🙂

Now that Kye is saying so many cute things I’m enjoying writing these monthly posts more and more 🙂 I can just see me and his future wife someday reading through my blog book and saying how cute her husband was 😉

Emily Parker
Latest posts by Emily Parker (see all)

You may also enjoy:

2 Comments

  1. Mom Fashion World
    September 13, 2011 / 2:38 am

    He's a daddy's lil' helper.My son has the same blackboard like his… I got it from IKEA.Btw, thanks so much for your comment.I'm now following you.Keep int touch!http://www.momfashionworld.blogspot.com/

    Reply
  2. emilysparker
    September 13, 2011 / 3:32 pm

    It's so fun watching a son with his daddy for sure!!!!! Yay for new blog friends 🙂

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *