The Journey of Parenthood…

Britt Monthly Summary: January 2016

This post covers Britt’s month of Jan!

This month we had another class field trip with her school! She’s had more field trips this year than I think Kye did his whole preschool career 🙂 

I had NO CLUE that our county has a museum! It was AWESOME. I’m not sure if it was fully appreciated by this age group but I’m hoping to put together a group of older kids to go back sometime soon. They do activities for older kids that I know Kye would love! Britt really enjoyed it too but I got a TON out of it. It was just a neat opportunity to learn more about where we live and where my children will grow up!

The man who wrote “Jingle Bells” was from Valdosta! How about that little fact to bust out at the holidays to everyone we meet? 😉

We have been having TERRIBLE issues with Mediacom for our internet. Like October – March it’s been a JOKE the number of people who have come out here to try to “fix it” and the amount of time I’ve spent dealing with it. I sent this to Zach b/c it’s proof that maybe our internet issues are related to being located on an Indian burial ground 😉

I was shocked my husband wasn’t in this display…I mean dude did have the #1 play of the day on Sportscenter 😉

All the kids LOVED getting to go inside the train!

 And they loved climbing all over the elephant which is a statue to represent the REAL elephant that once lived in our town!

Preschoolers all agree that their fav part of a museum field trip is snack time 😉

Now that Britt is four she gets to start eating the same vitamins that Kye does! Kye has been eating the Advocare chewables since he turned 4 and I’m a big believer in them! I wrote about each of the ones he takes (and now Britt does too!) in this post!

Kye has invented “pop tart mornings” where he makes a pop tart for himself and Britt on Saturday or Sunday. It’s really sweet that he’s wanting to get involved with preparing food for the family and Britt LOVES getting to have a pop tart treat one morning a week!

She may love pop tarts but WHEW food is a STRUGGLE right now. I reached the point where it was making me angry and upsetting me when dealing with her with not eating her food and complaining about it every. single. meal. So I changed. It’s important as a parent not to allow our children to dictate our emotions. I realize this food issue isn’t about food. It’s about Britt’s pride and her stubbornness and by allowing it to affect me, I let her think that she’s “winning” and that being prideful and stubborn works. No ma’am. 

So this month I switched it up. I started to give her the portion of food she needed to eat at a given meal and then I’d set a timer once it got close to the time the meal needed to end. Britt will sit at the dinner table for 40 min and barely touch her plate. A timer is a necessity with her. So I set the timer and when it goes off I just simply take her leftover food and put it in the fridge. Then the next meal? She eats that same food. I re-heat things if needed etc but I continue that routine until the food is gone. If that means telling her teacher at school or her teachers at church that she can’t have snack/treats then that’s fine too. If it means the rest of the family gets to eat a treat or a special meal or something and she misses out, so be it. 

This is all she had left of her dinner. Literally it’s less than 2 spoonfuls of yogurt. And to begin with I only gave her like 4 beans and 1 whole strawberry. I’m not expecting too much of her. She didn’t eat it so I put it in the fridge. Then she didn’t eat it at breakfast. So I told her teacher no snack. Then she didn’t eat it at lunch. So that night when I took the kids to Zaxby’s before church I brought the food with me and she didn’t get to eat Zaxbys like the rest of us did. Finally she ate it. 

I have found that this is working well for us. She’s chosen to go this path a few times and I just don’t stress it. She’ll eat when she’s hungry and I’m not going to let her eat junk food. I know I’m not “making her eat” more than she should to be healthy. I also know that I have to stick to my guns on this in order to help HER to break free from that pride. I feel WAY more calm in handling it this way. It allows me not to stress about it and truly does put the ball completely in her court! She decides if she eats it or not and she chooses to have to miss out when she chooses not to eat. 

From birth Britt has always had THE easiest hair! We wouldn’t even have to brush it and she’d wake up in the morning and it’d look perfect. She had that annoyingly beautiful hair 😉 Well…those days are gone. Now she gets REALLY tangled while she’s sleeping! My hair does the SAME THING so I feel her pain and have been mindful to use lots of conditioner and have started putting it in a pony for sleep!

This month the kids started having their chores (you can read more here!) and I’ve been both shocked and excited by how into it Britt has been so far. She’s ALL ABOUT IT! She loves doing her chores and I’m hoping that positive energy flows over into other areas as well! She was so excited to clean the windows that she asked if she could keep on cleaning 🙂

I stopped nursing Tess back in September and it is such a “proud mama” moment for me when I still see Britt “nursing” her baby dolls. She will sit with them and rock them and have them against her chest/belly and says she’s feeding them. I know breastfeeding is a controversial thing a lot of the time, and I don’t judge mamas who choose to formula feed but when it comes to my own daughters I do hope that the example I’m setting helps lead them to choose to breastfeed their little ones someday 🙂

Britt loves to draw, especially on chalk boards and dry erase boards. I love that she drew our family and the sunshine and holding balloons 🙂 It looks SO MUCH like something Kye would have drawn!

Britt is my Disney Girl! She LOVES it! The kids completed their Disney books this month and Britt has been obsessed with looking through hers and Kye’s shutterfly books of their first visits 🙂 Makes all that work worth it!

We found a very friendly lady bug out back. I love that if we had to have a “bug issue” that it’s lady bugs that we are always finding 🙂

I love my girl!

More About Britt:

  • Britt gets SO HOT which is so funny. She will be in the car and be like “I’m HOT Mom I neeeeeeeeeeed to feeeeeeel the air!!!” She even told me herself that she LOVES to be cold but can’t stand to be hot and “freaks out” about it. Which is just so interesting to me b/c when Britt was born the cord was wrapped around her neck twice. I was told to STOP pushing in order for them to untangle her. She has very little body fat and has ALWAYS had issues with turning purple even if it’s barely cold. Yet I guess she likes it!
  • Part of her chores include things she has to do but that she doesn’t get paid for. It’s been HUGE in helping her do better with wiping herself as her own, dressing herself and making her bed!
  • Britt asks over and over again about the same things she will say “mom mom mom mom mom” over and over and over again. 
  • She makes really funny voices and has her SUPER sweet voice sound which is super precious but man if she whines and says “WAH!” it can make my blood boil haha
  • Britt always says that she has her babies in her belly already
  • She says that Zach and I married and that her and Kye are in love and that Carter and Tess are in love
  • She also decided she will get married when she’s 10

Videos: 

Boo boo = DRAMA

She’s my sunshine!

…and Daddy’s too 🙂

Emily Parker
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