Britt Summary of Month 17

Britt lived her 17th month (was 16 months old) from April 6th through May 5th. This month was a HUGE focus on potty training.

Therefore, all the pictures of her are either of her wearing just panties (or pull ups) OR of her just in a top with no pants. Even now we still pretty much have her run around with no pants on…it makes it easier to rush her to the potty when she says “tee tee” 😉

Words: I plan to keep track (the best I can) of all the words Britt learns each month. So every month it will just be a continuation from the list the month prior 🙂

This month she REALLY started talking! It was SO exciting 🙂 She started saying: cracker, mama, doggie, duck, hat, daddy, daddy, mommy (said it for the first time on April 17th!), papa, tee tee, diaper, this, that, moo, nose, ball, toes, eyes, lights, car, egg, bible, door, ugh oh, up, cup.

Cracker: Because cracker is a word she knows, it has also become her FAVORITE food.

She gets super, super crunk about crackers. Here’s a video of her saying it! This video is probably one of my favs ever of her b/c you can see how excited she is about me understanding her saying “cracker”

Eating: Britt still LOVES to eat and loves a great variety of foods. She has done super well with using utensils and has started wanting to use bowls this month. She mostly just puts the food in and out of the bowl over and over again but she likes being a “big girl” with it and as long as she can handle it, I’m all about it too! Here’s a video showing how well she uses a fork

Sitting Still: Britt has a LOT more energy than Kye ever did. Both Zach and Mrs. Charlotte NEVER sit still. They are go-go-go type people and I can see Britt having those similar qualities.

I think it’s SUPER important for me to start working with Britt now on learning to sit still and focus on one activity at a time.

With how hardcore ADHD is diagnosed now, I know it’s important for her to be able to harness all that energy. I am 100% confident that if Zach was a child in today’s world that some of his teachers growing up would have probably tried to get him on ADHD meds for his hyperness.

Zach is always on the move and often it will appear that he’s not paying attention and is unable to focus but he actually IS able to. He will just be doing other things while listening.

I feel his parents did a FABULOUS job of helping him be successful in school while also using his energy in positive ways. I plan for us to do the same with Britt 🙂 

In an effort to help train her to sit still and focus, I’m trying to start having her have play time in the high chair.

On this particular day she was teething so I got out several teething rings and she played with them while Kye played with some other toys at the table. She did great! It’s something I plan to work with her on a lot this summer once she is fully adjusted to dropping her morning nap!

Accessorizing: Britt cracks me up with how much she LOVES to accessorize! She constantly is saying “shoes shoes” bc she wants me to put shoes on her.

When I gave her the baby doll to help with potty training I also got Kye a new FSU hat to wear on his guy’s day and SHE wanted the hat more than she wanted the doll!!!

On laundry day I found her getting one of my thongs out of the clean clothes hamper and wearing it as a necklace haha

Zach and I cleaned out our attic space upstairs as he is working on turning it into a big playroom for the kids (post to come!).

When we were going through stuff I found a bunch of my old Vera Bradley purses I had packed away. I NEVER use small purses anymore but decided to hang onto them all for my daughter someday 🙂 Britt was SO excited and loves to walk around with a purse on her shoulder!

She also LOVES to wear bracelets and will legit CRY when I take them off of her!

Kye’s hat is a favorite 🙂

I LOVE how she will be content to wear sunglasses too! Kye would always take them off but Britt LOVES wearing them!

Phone: Like a true girl she’s also obsessed with her phone and constantly has a phone with her while she plays. An early technology addiction? 😉

This video is of her talking it up on the phone and shows her adorable little run!

This cracks me up. Typical dude about to be scratching his junk and typical girl too busy texting her friends haha

Coloring: Another thing I plan to work with Britt on to help her harness her energy is coloring. Kye has always LOVED to color and Britt is def old enough now to start!

This month Kye was working on a picture and Britt enjoyed watching him and even wanted to join in! I was proud of him for not getting upset that she colored on his artwork and GMama was proud to get to keep the first of Britt’s coloring 🙂

The random lines are all Britt 😉

Big Kid Toys: I’ve always been super hardcore about following age recommendations on toys…but that’s one of those things that kinda goes out the window once you have more than one kid at home!

It’s only natural for Britt to want to play with Kye’s stuff and a lot of his stuff is not appropriate for her age. I always keep a good eye on her but thankfully Britt RARELY ever puts stuff in her mouth 🙂 Whenever Kye isn’t home Britt jumps at the opportunity to play with his stuff haha!

She even set up all the army guys by herself just like Kye does!

And she LOVES to play “ball”

And she even loves to tackle Bruce! Here’s a video! And a video of Kye tackling with her!

Here’s another video of her tackling skills!

And of course she loves to run around our “circle” just like Big Brother does!

She even enjoys playing in his bed 🙂

And she loves to copy him and look out the front window at the cars!

Outside: The negative about the weather staying cool for so long as been we can’t use the pool…but the positive is that we have been playing outside a lot more than we normally would b/c it’s not SO hot!!!

I’ve been trying to do better with taking the kids outside. I’m just not naturally an outside type of girl but I know it’s important for the kids to burn those calories and enjoy the outdoors 🙂

Britt LOVES it and playing outside is one way to immediately put a smile on her cute little face!

First time riding the lawn mower with Daddy!

I love how he’s sweetly talking to her about it b/c she was scared

Haha CLASSIC!

Once she got used to it she liked it!

Movie: I was pretty set on not letting Britt watch ANY movies until she turned two but with her high energy I have started having her sit in her little seat to watch Your Baby Can Read on occasion.

Not because I think it’s an educational movie, but because I want Britt to SIT and to be trained to sit still for longer periods of time.

While we don’t watch TV often in our home, it’s still a blessing that Kye will sit and watch it so well and pay attention to it for long periods.

It comes in handy when he’s sick and needs his rest. Or when we’re all together as a big family and the adults are doing adult things (like sitting and talking) and we can put on a movie for all the kids 🙂

Since we are in the beginning stages of planning Britt’s first Disney trip (early next year! wooohooo) I want her to KNOW the Disney characters so I thought it was a good idea to occasionally let her watch a little bit of each movie.

Kye wanted her to watch Lady and the Tramp so I sat with them and we watched the first 15 min of it. I loved the cuddle time and she did well!

I’m not sure how often we’ll watch movies but I at least want her to see all the ones with characters we will encounter at the parks before we go on her first trip! Gotta get that Disney Brainwash started young 😉

Ugh-oh: We might be in for some trouble here pretty quick! I walked into Britt’s room this month to find her topless! She took off her shirt and had thrown it on the floor haha Guess she prefers sleeping naked?!?!

Swim: I did an entire post about Britt’s survival swim HERE. But couldn’t help it…I had to post this cute pic one more time of her graduation day! SO proud of my big girl!!!

Schedule:

Her schedule was the same as last month!

Schedule:

7:10: Up for the day 

Breakfast

We were potty training so we SKIPPED independent playtime during this phase as I wasn’t about to leave her in the pack and play with panties on solo!

9:00: Down for nap

11:00 Up from nap

12:20: Lunch

1:00 Nap

3:30-4:00: Up from Nap

6:00: Dinner

6:40: Bath

7:10: Bed

Cuddling with Mommy watching Lady and the Tramp!

(which was one of my FAVS as a kid!)

Other stuff Britt was up to this month:

• She started smiling on demand (at least when G-Mama asks her to smile!) this month which is a BIG deal for me 🙂
• She loves to sing “do-DAH” for “Zippity do dah” which is def her fav song
• She LOVES to smell flowers 🙂
• Britt is like her daddy with her hyperness and also with her temper. She’s pretty hot headed haha. She gets mad and will throw things so she’s starting to get spankings for that
• On April 17th she started folding her hands to pray. She did it for the first time at Mrs Charlotte’s. Mrs. Charlotte was rushing around getting Britts lunch ready and gave her all her food and Britt shook her head “no” and folded her hands in prayer 🙂 Here is a video of her praying!

• It SHOCKS me the level of comprehension Britt has. Again, this is a Zach thing. She may seem like she’s not listening at all but she IS. Pretty much anything I say to her I can tell she’s understanding what I’m saying and she will respond appropriately!
• She also does a GREAT job with obeying. At this age you can’t expect 100% of the time for a child to obey. Toddlerwise says the goal at her age is for her to obey us 60% of the time and she FOR SURE does that!!!
• Britt knows so many of her body parts and loves when I sing “Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes” Here’s a video showing many of the body parts
• Britt still enjoys bath time quite a bit! Here’s a video of her playing basketball in the tub!
• When she does watch Your Baby Can Read she repeats a lot of what they do and say

• Britt adores her brother and legit copies EVERYTHING he does. It’s a great way for us to talk to him about how much responsibility is on his shoulders as the oldest child and that he gets a lot of privileges (staying up later, going to disney, etc) but that he also has a lot of responsibility in his role!
• Britt has ALWAYS reminded me of a little puppy…I remember saying that when she was very young bc she always had her mouth opened. Well now she even PANTS like a dog. She pants when she is very excited and it’s hilarious. She gets SO crunk when we understand what she’s saying and will pant and pant haha
• Her fav part of the bath routine is when I clean out her ears (which Zach never does as he is team cleaning-out-your-ears-is-bad-for-you while I think using the baby qtips is fine and i’m careful not to clean out IN the ear). She really enjoys it and will find random objects to try to “clean out” our ears with

• Britt LOVES to dance and it’s adorable! She breaks it down on the reg 😉 Here’s a video! and another video of her dancing before bed 🙂
• ALL four of her canines are starting to come in. Poor thing. It’s been the toughest teeth on her as she’s pretty much always been easy with the teething. She got a bit of a rash this time and even a fever which was a first for her in a LONG time. She also woke up in the night (um, that hasn’t happened since she first slept through the night as a little little baby!) SCREAMING out in pain. It was heartbreaking. I had one night where I was up ALL. NIGHT. with her. (Hence why I was inspired to show Lady and the Tramp…the next day…haha). Thankfully Tylenol helps with the pain and she got through it pretty quickly. It was so hard for me to see her like that!

You can see Britt’s Summary of Month 16 HERE and Kye’s summary of Month 17 HERE. It’s so funny how different they are with their teeth! Kye only had 10 at this age, and Britt has 12 and will have 16 once the canines come through all the way.

It’s also interesting how many MORE words she can say than he did at this age. I think it has a lot to do with the second child? Kye is more like me in his vocalization. He talks SUPER fast and he always had this funny German-little language.

I truly believe it was him saying REAL words but that his little mind was going so quickly and he was talking so quickly that we couldn’t understand him. Britt isn’t nearly as vocal as Kye was, but when she speaks…she speaks clearly. Occasionally she’ll do more gibberish but it’s not often…here’s a video of it!

SO CUTE!!!

My Babies Having Fun 🙂