Here’s Kye’s summary from June!
Yes, it’s starting off the same way May’s did…with pics of Kye painting haha! I didn’t even plan for that!
Artist: Kye is still VERY into art. While I’m not looking forward for him to go back to school…I think he will be excited to have a wider variety of art projects to work on than the same old stuff I can offer 😉 He did this painting for my dad for Father’s Day!
He narrated the whole painting for me…I remember the blue line on the bottom was water…and the red cloud at the top was the sun bleeding…
I thought a little throw back picture would be fun! This is ME painting on my childhood easel! It was taken in Feb of 1986 so I was only 15 months old. Um my mom was daring to be allowing me to paint at such a young age!!! I doubt I was painting anything bleeding…
He has also enjoyed the chalkboard side of the easel this month
I LOVE the way he draws people 🙂
I did invest in a few “crafty” things from Hobby Lobby like this little puppet show thing he could color
Chef Kye: Most afternoons Zach gets home around 5 so he and Kye head out back to work in the yard or swim or something physical. But sometimes Kye ends up helping me in the kitchen. I kinda love it 🙂 It takes a LOT longer to get stuff done because he wants to help all the time but I enjoy that time together and enjoy teaching him things about cooking, measuring, patience, and having a helpful heart!
Enjoying the benefits of helping 😉
Sick: It’s summer. I didn’t know people could still get sick in the summer…I thought that was always a winter thing?!?! Turns out you can! The day we had Britt’s 6 month photo shoot Kye wasn’t acting like himself so the next morning I took him into the walk-in clinic. I honestly thought he was fine. He never even had a fever! Yet he tested positive for STREP. Even though he had it he continued to pretty much act like himself…it was so strange. He passed it along to Zach who says it was THE WORST sickness he’s ever had. I got it once we got home from Disney and it was horrible. I went through all my antibiotics and was still sick (as was Zach). I ended up taking another round of antibiotics to finally get rid of it. June was a sickly month in our household!!! Thankfully Britt never got it!!! Kye was able to go to the first night of VBS at church but then we went to the dr and couldn’t risk him getting other kids sick. He was SO disappointed so I took him out on a mommy date to make up for it 🙂
Zaxby’s
then The Mixx!
Kye finished up his antibiotics just in time for Disney. I worried about him being in the wet weather but he seemed fine. Then about a week later he had a big glob of what looked like sleep in his eye. I wiped it away and didn’t think anything of it then it appeared again a couple of hours later. I called the dr and they prescribed him some eye drops. The sickness had moved into his eyes. Which I didn’t even know was possible! He ended up having it in both eyes so we had to put drops in them two times a day. Poor kid hated the drops but did such a great job with it. SO thankful those days are behind us!!!
You can tell it’s in his right eye in this picture
Hair: Kye’s hair has been a debate in our home forever. To cut or not to cut. And when we cut, how much to cut. Ugh. Grr. Phh. (Insert other annoyed sounds here). Zach wants it long and shaggy and I have always wanted it shorter. After the wedding I just decided to leave it alone. Zach wanted it long so I’d let it grow long. We didn’t have anything major coming up so I didn’t really care. Well it got so long that it was literally in his eyes. It bothered him and I worried about it causing vision issues. Zach thought if we left it alone that it’d start going to the side but his hair just didn’t work like that…it fell right into his face. I found a picture from some Facebook stalking of a kid’s hair I LOVED. Shaggy, beachy style. Still covering his ears but not just random long hair ya know? I like a STYLE. Zach liked it too so I took that picture to get it cut. I showed Penny (we LOVE Jordan’s Salon!) and she said Kye’s hair is just not thick enough yet. We can’t do a layered look in the front because he doesn’t have thick enough hair. She did the best she could with his hair to achieve the look we were wanting and said as he gets older it’ll be more doable…
Pre-cut
Post-cut
We have since learned to JUST LEAVE IT ALONE. We’re going to continue to get it cut similar to this style but we don’t fix it anymore. By just letting it do it’s own thing it ends up being a lot cuter than us trying to control it 🙂
Roomtime: Kye now does 45 min to an hour of roomtime a day. He plays wonderfully and cleans up all of his toys beautifully. He typically asks me to play with him after his timer goes off so I’ve started having him do a shorter length of time so I’ll have time to play before it’s time to get Brittlynn up! Most often we “eat” I think it’s hilarious how 99% of the food goes to him.
Seriously…he gave me a slice of orange and one fry. Oh and this him acting like an adult drinking his “coffee” (which Zach and I don’t even drink! I can’t even operate our coffee maker…he’s picked this up from G-Mama and Gramma!) I LOVE watching him…here’s a video
Drums: I’m in the kitchen a lot especially now that Brittlynn is eating solids and now that we’re about out of our freezer meals I made while I was pregnant with her. When he’s bored and I’m in a pinch I bust out the pot drums 😉 Always works!!! How Britt sleeps through them I’m not quite sure!
Another thing we pull out when we’re in the kitchen is the reward chart. I bought it for Kye with the BEST intentions…I thought it would help him ease into the transition of having a sibling by taking some time out of our day each day to give him a star magnet in each spot where he completed the task that day. A chance to reward him and praise him. It’s a great idea in theory. But I never quite did get in the habit of it so now it’s great for color practice 🙂 He has fun filling in all the squares with their matching color of stars. Can you tell he’s also in a stage where he doesn’t like his picture taken? He says “No pictures Mommy!”
Imaginary Friends: I am not a fan of imaginary friends but I have wondered if Kye would ever have any. Randomly he has started talking about some friends of his. They are never actually WITH us though. They are always somewhere else and are going to come over sometime. He has lots of them but the ones he talks about most are Hawkin and Chalky Boy…great names huh?!?! Supposedly they live at Gramma’s house. Here’s a video of him talking about them. They aren’t often talked about but when he brings them up we just roll with it. So far it’s not a big deal!
Creativity: I’m proud that Kye enjoys figuring things out on his own and comes up with all sorts of creations. He created a new trick with his “jumpoline” that you can see in this video. I also found him upstairs one morning and he had built an entire lego tower city thing all on his own. He also built several lego vehicles and was very proud of them. He works hard to achieve his goals but it can also lead to frustration for him when he’s so focused on a task that just isn’t possible!
He continued to try for over 20 minutes to get this piece attached to the Lightning McQueen but it wasn’t possible for it to work. He eventually asked me for help and I showed him how to make it work 🙂
Who is the boss/asking nicely: Two things we REALLY started working on this month. Kye is a first born and I see some typical “first born” qualities in him. I was very bossy as a kid and he is as well. When he gets bossy I simply say “Kye, who is the boss?” He knows it’s GOD then Mommy/Daddy. He will try to sometimes be sneaky about this and will say “Mommy, God TOLD me to do such and such” because he knows God is the REAL boss but I remind him that God made Mommy the boss and I made those decisions. We are also working on asking nicely. At this age Kye will say “I want some milk” then we’ll say “What do you say” and he’ll reply “please.” All of that is fine and good but if you think about it, it’s not really teaching him to say it all together with the please in the question, ya know? So now we’ll do that same routine but then will say “say it all together” and he’ll say “mommy can i please have some milk?” For awhile I would tell him the way to ask the question then have him say it but he quickly caught on and by the end of the month we were able to say “how do you ask?” the first time he said it and he’d repeat the whole thing in a polite question. I know people get hardcore about saying “may I?” over “can I?” but for now I’m just happy with the “please” 😉
Britt’s Toys: Kye LOVES the drawer in Britt’s room filled with her toys. We also had a similar drawer in his room when he was a baby. And he loved that too 🙂 I attempted to go back and find a picture of him playing in it but couldn’t! Boo!
One “toy” Britt has now that was Kye’s is a book of pictures of the family…I haven’t put new pictures in it yet so he enjoys seeing himself as a baby. Here’s a video of him showing it to Brittlynn 🙂
Most of the toys in her drawer were his so I see why he loves them so much!
He likes to get them ALL out for her to play with
And he enjoys turning them into accessories too
He’s been so into the big brother roll that it’s transitioned into him having his own babies. This little monkey toy became his baby for quite awhile. He loved pushing it around in my childhood baby stroller and wanted to put it in it’s bed before naps and such. He’d say “isn’t the baby so cute?” Here’s a video about the baby Monkey (named…Isis…of course)
Playing “cars” together
He wanted his toy police car to “take a picture” of all the other cars
We made a KILLER track…most of which he did on his own! It’s so neat that he’s able to put them all together all by himself! It went from one side of the living room to the other and even into the pantry area all the way to the dining room!!! I hated having to destroy it 🙁
I was so proud of this track I took a video…here it is 😉
With Britt’s schedule we now read stories together before 1:00 nap and before bed. Zach usually reads the bedtime story since I read the nap one. I love these of them cuddled up with Daddy 🙂
Kye will NOT share Monkey but he gladly hands Brittlynn Smyrna to play with 🙂
Cuddling up after naps
For Christmas Brittlynn got Violet and Kye got Scout awhile back. I JUST NOW hooked it up to the computer and it’s awesome. They say the kids names, spell them and even sing customized songs. It’s super cool and I should have hooked it all up to the computer sooner! Britt loves her Violet and it’s inspired Kye to want to play with Scout all the time too. It’s adorable and it’s the first real toy that we’ve had the boy version and the girl version. It’s just precious to me!!!
Here’s some more pictures of Big Brother and Little Sister from this month!
More that Kye was up to in June:
- He adores his sister and walked into her room saying “I want to see that pretty girl!”
- When we got back from Italy we asked him what his favorite thing he did was while at Gramma’s and G-Mama’s and he answered “Seeing you when you got home!”
- We were riding in the car (our favorite place for some good conversation) and we were talking about trees. I asked him who made the trees and he said “Jesus and God. They had BIG tummies with all of those trees in there” 🙂
- Since being out of school for the summer he has been doing AWESOME on saying “ma’am” and “sir” I LOVE that he goes to school for a lot of reasons but I don’t like the language influence…”yeah” became part of his vocabulary and he became forgetful on the ma’am and sir area
- He gets very upset if he isn’t able to “help” us put Brittlynn to bed for naps or night time and if he can’t “help” us wake her up. I WANT Brittlynn to get some alone time with Mommy and Daddy but how can you refuse a kid who adores his sister?!?!
- Now that she is more interested in his toys the sharing issues have begun. He does okay with it and will be quick to offer her something else to play with of his rather than play with whatever toy she’s going after.
- When we tuck him in he always asks if we can cuddle for a minute then when we leave he always says “make sure the dogs don’t bark”
- He woke up screaming “Rapunzel! Rapunzel!”I ran into his room and he said he had to save her. So sweet that he was dreaming about her 🙂
- He is truly starting to grasp emotions and their meanings. He said he was excited when Mommy came home from Italy and will say things make him upset or mad etc
- We are able to have more legit conversations with him. I enjoy our talks SO much even if they are about Toy Story movies 😉 We had a long one trying to figure out which Toy Story movie was his favorite
- Evvvvverything is pink. It’s his favorite color and he always wants pink stuff and points out whenever he sees anything pink
- One Sunday he got a spanking (a rarity these days) at church. On the way home he said he was sad because he got a spanking but that he won’t be sad anymore because he won’t pitch a fit at church again. I love that he’s able to reason and understand more!
- He’s at that age where he asks “why” a lot and I try to remind myself that those are teachable moments. I do my best to explain the “why” for most everything he asks when I know the answer. I also try to turn the tables on him and ask him “why do you think?”
- While he’s not 100% on all of his colors he knows them pretty well at this point!
- He enjoys listening to music and especially upbeat type songs. Pretty much anytime a Black Eyed Peas song comes on he says he likes it 😉
- He reminds me SO much of Zach. He does NOT like to pretend to be things. Whenever we do any type of pretend play he is ALWAYS “Kye.” He cannot be a tiger. Or Woody. Or anything or anyone other than Kye 😉
- We had a looong conversation about how Mommy can never be Daddy and how Kye will never be a Mommy. It’s a confusing thing to think about for a little kid. I ended up explaining it through simpler examples (like a tree can never turn into a bird…a house can’t turn into a car…etc). We talked about how God made us to be US and we can’t be anyone else. We get older but we don’t change who we are. He loves saying stuff like “Sadie can’t be a cat!” and other such examples now.
- Up until now we’ve allowed throwing balls in the house but it’s at a point where he’s gotten strong and I don’t want to risk Brittlynn getting hurt. We debated for awhile on how to handle it and decided to say throwing balls can only happen in the playroom or outside. And we can’t throw anything else. It’s been harder on Zach and I than Kye!!! You don’t realize how often you toss a pillow or a toy or even toss something to each other in the kitchen until you have a preschooler calling you out every time!
- He constantly tickles Brittlynn. It’s so sweet but at the same time I think she gets pretty sick of it! She does CRACK up at him though. She thinks he’s hilarious. Here’s a video.
- He told me that he likes my kisses and Daddy’s hugs 😉
- We were riding one night as a family and Brittlynn could see Zach in her mirror in the car. She was laughing at Zach then Kye was laughing at her. It was ADORABLE
- Kye often has roomtime then will have movie time. I will pause the movie so he can help me wake Britt from her nap and he will say “I waited patiently” when I come back out of her room to restart the movie.
- When we get upstairs for roomtime he will say “what the rule mommy? don’t make a mess!”
- He’s a lot more into playing with me than he has been in the past. Usually he just plays by himself and kinda ignores me but now he wants me to make up story lines with his toys and will have me replay the same ones over and over again…
- He started calling me “Mom” quite often this month and I asked him why. He said “your not Mommy anymore, you’re Mom”
- I am SICK of hearing him yell out “it’s time to get up!” when he wakes up from his nap. So I started teaching him to say “please Mommy can I get up?”
- I realized when reading Robyn’s blog about Lorelai’s swim that we needed to crack down harder on Kye practicing. He would do it but complain about it and just didn’t enjoy it the way he used to. We started MAKING him practice every single time and told him if he whined about it then he’d have to practice longer. Just like with Lorelai, it “clicked” with Kye and he started doing better with swim and LOVING it again 🙂
- I think sometimes, as a mama, it’s tough to let our kids grow up. I’m glad I have Zach to remind me when Kye’s ready for something I didn’t realize he was ready for! Zach helped him learn how to dress and undress himself this month…underwear and all! Here’s a video (after he’d already put on his underwear…)
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You had CRAZY long hair for a 15 month old! You were such a cutie! I think Kye will have so much fun returning to school, especially where there is a variety of activities offered, and a mess is expected;) Also, LOVE the picture of him licking the mixers…must have been pretty yummy! Miss you!
Oh, Arabelle has 2 imaginary friends that go with us EVERYWHERE. Emma and Joshua…so weird because we don't know anyone by those names. She comes up with some funny stories about them though!You going to the consignment sale Sat? I'll be shopping @ 4!
I am so impressed with kyes ppl! Macy has been talking constantly about her "little parents" which are imaginary. It's making me crazy.
Where did you get that "fake food" that Kye is playing with during roomtime??? We have "fake food" for my girls' kitchen, but nothing like what you have and I think they would love it!!