The Journey of Parenthood…

Kye Monthly Summary: April

This is Kye’s monthly summary from April 🙂

This month Kye had his very last chapel at school. He’s gone to the same school since he was 2 ½ years old and every Wednesday morning they have a chapel gathering. They sing songs and learn a simple lesson from God’s Word. Parents are always welcome to attend and I think it’s a great outreach program! I’ve gone a couple times though the years and have always enjoyed it! Kye’s kindergarten class is actually the last kindergarten class to go through the school. For the forceable future they don’t plan to offer kindergarten anymore! Yes, I’m bummed b/c I planned to keep Britt there for kinder too! As a way to honor the k5 kids they had a special chapel where the kindergarteners chose, and lead, all the songs and performed a skit. The kids and I were so happy that Zach surprised us and made it! I was even happier that it was his turn to be embarrassed and go up on stage 😉 And even funnier is that they sang “tooty-ta” which is Britt’s FAV and is for sure the most embarrassing song haha. He was a great sport! And he lucked out I had forgotten that I video taped it when I originally wrote this post. Here’s the video of “tooty-ta” and the video of Kye’s favorite “read your bible everyday”

I took pics of the skit while Zach took video 🙂 here’s the video!  I love how serious he is haha…acting may not be in our future 😉

He may be serious in a school setting, but at home the sillier side of Kye does come out 🙂 He is very creative and loves to make up songs. He has also started to ask about picking out his own clothes. Lord help me because child is SO PROUD of his matching skills…maybe he’s color blind?!?! He set up a stage complete with signs and got dressed for the show!

Our neighborhood has a community garage sale so the big kids and I drove around to check ’em out. Zach is anti garage sales and is big about just donating everything we get rid of and writing it off on taxes. Which I get, but I was raised garage sale hunting and I’m always down to go when we can! It’ll be something that will be fun once all the kids are older for sure! We didn’t find ANYTHING so I let the kids get their first ever Sunny D from some neighbor children!

This month we transitioned Kye from baths to showers! He and Britt had been bathing together since she was able to sit up and once Tess was born we had Tess bathe solo. Now that Tess can sit up in her bath seat we went ahead and switched it up. It got to the point where it was def time for Kye and Britt to bathe separately. We’re not shy about our bodies in our home but I knew the time would come where it was just more appropriate for separate bath times. He’s done GREAT with showering! Zach told him to count to 30 when the water starts before putting in the shampoo and now whenever he showers I can hear him counting 🙂 

Even though it was time and it was an easy transition, it still made me SAD that he’s done with Mommy and Daddy bathing him! No more bath toys or asking to play longer! He’s fully grown!

Speaking of being grown we also started having Kye brush his own teeth in the mornings. It’s NOT the best thing, as it’s recommended for parents to brush their teeth until age 9. But our mornings heading to school are always rushed and often I’d drop the ball and simply fail to brush his teeth at all. We figured it was better for him to brush them than for them to not be brushed. And obviously we still brush them each night for him!

This month we made a decently large purchase for our home: a new vacuum. I am a sucker for infomercials and one Sunday morning I was up nursing Tess early (we wake her early on Sundays b/c church) so I turned on the tv and got sucked into an infomercial about the Shark Rocket
. I ended up recording it to show Zach haha! I am SO glad we ended up buying one! It’s AMAZING and best of all it’s so light that Kye can do all the vacuuming for me 🙂 I love my new vacuum, especially b/c it means I don’t have to vacuum! Ha!

Kye and I worked our way through reading our second chapter book together this month. We read Stuart Little
. It’s SO RANDOM. Has anyone else read it? I didn’t like it at all. However I love reading together and it’s so cute how into it he gets and how much he enjoys that time. He has started reading some to me too!

Kye has ALWAYS had such a heart for the Lord and is very serious about his prayer life. He keeps a prayer journal and this month he carried a little notebook around with him all day. He would write down prayers as he thought about it and then at night he’d read through all his sheets while saying his prayers. It was precious to hear some of the things on his heart…although random ailments suddenly appeared that I had no knowledge of Britt having haha!

I’m pretty sure I’m the one who first played checkers with Kye. What was I thinking? The kid fell in LOVE with it. And checkers is NOT a short game…at all. He and Zach played it a few times and Kye got very frustrated that he couldn’t ever come close to beating Zach. He said he only wants to play with Mommy until he’s 21 and then he’ll play Daddy again. He’s using me as practice to get good enough to beat Daddy 😉 He said we need to play three times a week. He’s winning a lot because I get booooored. By the time we have all kings I just think it’s super boring? So I basically get jumped on purpose 😉 I do love that he enjoys it and I love the time together though! And I know my losing is just helping him get more confidence to take down Daddy, right? 😉 

He also discovered the game Sorry!
this month at G-Mama’s! Turns out it was Zach’s favorite as a kid 🙂 Maybe Kye will have a chance at beating him before he turns 21 😉

Kye is very much a “handy man” around the house and loves to make things for me. He made me a little table and also surprised me with a random box creation that he said is to hold all my pens. He put all my pens from my desk in it and put it on the floor…hello tripping hazard haha! I seriously do LOVE the little table though! It’s perfect to put on the floor by my side of the bed to keep the monitor on it at night!

Kye is very creative. His made up songs, his building things, and he also creates all kinds of games. This was one using items from our Easter tub. Something with the balls and the baskets. I can’t remember all the rules (b/c trust me, there are always LOTS of rules to these games!). 

Kye loves to play with Tess in her room and especially loves to “set up” her toys for her. This involves using ALL the links we have and making a big connection of them all on her playmat. Let’s just say this is one of the reasons we packed the play mat up earlier for Tess than we did with Kye or Britt haha! It’s so sweet that he enjoys seeing her happy and wants for her to have fun! 

As a kid I remember being pretty bossy. I think it’s a common first born trait? I loved to play school and would always be the teacher and my younger brother, as well as our neighborhood friends, were the students. I bet I drove them NUTS because I see Kye driving Britt nuts already about it. He has started making “worksheets” for her to do. She, naturally, doesn’t want to do them and is easily frustrated by what he tries to teach her because it’s things way, way above her current abilities. She’s learning letter and number recognition and he’s trying to teach her to spell and add. I had a big talk with him about it all and told him what I learned from being similar to him as a kid: other kids won’t want to play with you if you’re always bossy. I also talked to him about the kinds of things he CAN help Britt learn and he’s since made up more age appropriate work sheets and had her do more activities that are on her skill level. 

Kye learned about recycling this month at school around Earth Day. Our family, as you may have guessed, is more on the republican/conservative side. We aren’t really into the whole “green” thing and I personally think so much of the “trend” is just a money maker. When we had recycling offered with our trash company, we did recycle but we aren’t very environmentally cautious I guess? We don’t litter or anything like that, we just don’t prioritize “going green” in our daily lives. Since learning about the Earth and recycling though Kye has become very into it. He has a box in the garage where he stores up things he could use to recycle and will randomly gather the items to create something new with them. Most of the time it involves cutting some holes in some water bottles 😉 

Right now Kye still has nap time. He turned 6 in March and gets up each morning at 7:04 to start the day. He then “naps” from 1:00-2:40. His bedtime is 7:45. He’s getting roughly 11 hours and 15 min of sleep each night and typically doesn’t sleep during his naps. I am still worried about him not getting this time though when he goes to all day school in the fall! If he doesn’t have his rest time then I can tell a difference in him! He seems tired (even though he doesn’t usually sleep during that time) and more easily agitated. I can’t imagine how he’ll be after going-going-going at school all day every day! I may consider doing a rest time when he gets home in the afternoons??? Some days he even surprises me and will SLEEP at naps! I’d say maybe once or twice a week he’ll sleep!

Usually when Kye wakes from nap Britt is still sleeping and I’m about to nurse Tess. His lamp turns on at 2:40 which lets him know it’s time to get up and he can do pretty much whatever he pleases. He LOVES this alone time. I think he is an introvert and needs the time alone to recharge. Britt is an extrovert and always, always wants to be around others. It causes them to clash a good bit and I’m thankful he gets this solo time that he needs. Another thing I worry about with all day school is that he’ll get home and be immediately attacked by Britt! She’ll be needing her “together time” with him and he’ll be needing his “alone time.” I’m sure I’ll have to do a good bit of schedule arranging to help our afternoons run smoothly when the time comes!

Often Kye enjoys playing with his castle guys in his room when he gets up from nap. He used his recycling finds to make what I thought was a jail for the bad guys. I checked it out one day and was pretty surprised by it, turns out it wasn’t a jail.  He drew a cross and wrote “we will bless him we believe in Jesus” and he also drew Jesus on the cross as well. He said it was a tomb for where the guys who died in the war got buried. Kinda creeped me out! 

Another thing Kye does during this time is go outside. Last year after summer I happened to be at Toys R Us and they and a HUGE clearance sale on summer toys. They had this random little car sand box set meant for toddlers…but it was only $4 so I bought it and gave it to Kye for his 6th birthday. I knew he’d enjoy it as an extra outside toy for his cars and such and I was right! It was a great find!

Big Papa and G-Mama went to Japan this month on an Aflac trip. It’s the first big Aflac trip that Zach didn’t qualify for that I wasn’t disappointed about ha! I just haven’t ever had a desire to go to Japan? Although when I found out their hotel was SUPER close to Disney Japan I about died. I would LOVE to someday visit all the Disney locations…so I guess I’d need to go to Japan at some point huh? Just not while my kids are so young or while I’m nursing a baby 🙂 Anyway they brought the kids back some really fun gifts!

We went out to dinner one night as a family this month (had a gift card!). Kye is so funny because he said he likes Longhorn b/c they give orange slices with their chicken and fries. After this night I started buying oranges! I never really buy them very often but hello, the kid LOVES them!!!

Kye is such a great big brother to BOTH of his sisters. He is very patient and loving and enjoys seeing them be happy. He’s going to be such a great daddy some day! I love this look on his face while he watches Tess 🙂 

He makes my day brighter every day and finds ways to constantly show others that he cares. I LOVE this picture of this bunny with the rainbow! I wished it was for me!!!

More about Kye this month:

  • In the car one day Kye informed me that parents are wrong about the stuff we say 😉 He said “like you tell me I look fly but then no one else says that I do!” Bahahaa. I explained to him that he does look cool or handsome or whatever and that just because others don’t tell him that doesn’t mean they don’t think it 😉 
  • This month we had an incident. Kye is very responsible but is also still only 6. Since Tess was born I haven’t liked Kye being given any responsibility over her. I would say this but I realize that some lessons in life have to be learned rather than told. Tess and Kye and Zach were in our bedroom, I was in the kitchen. All I know is that Tess fell off the bed. When I ran in the room my first reaction was actually to be more concerned about Kye. I just knew he was SO upset and he didn’t need to be. It’s not up to him to take care of the baby. He said he was supposed to watch her and she was trying to get the remote so he turned to put it away from her and that’s when she fell off the bed. Mobile babies shouldn’t be on beds. Thankfully she was okay and it was a good lesson to us all. Kye knows if we ever ask him to do something he’s not comfortable with to let us know. He told me later “I’m not watching anyone ever again. It’s YOUR baby!!!” 😉
  • This month Kye started sleeping with Levi in his room 🙂 We have had dog issues for awhile now. It’s been a battle. My recommendation to people is to wait to get dogs until after having children. Levi was very very attached to me and as we added more and more children he started acting out in different ways because he’s not getting the attention he needs from me. Sadie is also 16 years old and is losing her ability to control her bladder and such. We decided to move them outside during the day and then let them in at night only. Levi sleeps with Kye and Britt has Sadie. I don’t feel bad about it because they go out at 7 am and come in at 7 pm so they are inside for half the day! If I worked outside the home they’d be outside anyway! It’s been a positive decision for our family. No more issues inside and it gives the kids more responsibility over the pets. Britt feeds them each day and Kye fills their water bowl. Plus the kids love getting to sleep with them at night!
  • Kye is a BOY for SURE! Kid can EAT like no one’s business! He chows down and cleans his plate and always wants more! He likes everything I cook (finally!) and it’s just proof that by continuing to have our kids eat a certain amount of each thing on their plate that they will, eventually, start to like it!
  • Kye is very serious and does NOT like being teased or laughed at. He gets very embarrassed and upset. 
  • He is the only boy in his class and struggles with it. All the girls may adore him and think he’s their boyfriend, but he doesn’t understand that yet. He told me he wishes there were no girls in the world except for our family!
  • Our neighbor (the mean one!) is selling their house! Kye said he wants to buy it and has it all worked out that he has enough book mark money to buy it 🙂
  • He told me he loves a little girl in his class, Emma, but doesn’t know when he’s going to tell her
  • He said he has a big head so he has big breams and that Britt has a small head so she has small brains
  • Kye went on a donut date with G-Mama (they both love chocolate covered cream filled donuts) and was so thoughtful to bring Britt home a donut too
  • Kye started having a responsibility as part of the worship service at church! He goes and collects the attendance cards at the start of services. He was SO precious and it was a proud mama moment for sure!
  • When I packed his last lunch for lunch bunch I put a little note in it that said “I love you” but I put an eye ball for the “I” a heart for the “love” etc. That same day G-Mama picked him up and took him to get the donuts. He cam running in the door SO excited. Not about lunch bunch, not about the donuts, but about my note! He said he carried it with him all day and that all his friends looked at it and thought it was so cool that it had the eyeball for “I” and that it was a code they had to figure out haha. He was so thrilled by it and it literally made me get tears in my eyes. It meant so much to ME that a little gesture like that meant so much to him. 🙂
  • I’m FINALLY reading Childwise
    and y’all. It’s a GAME CHANGER. The first thing I’m working on is funneling every aspect of parenting through the golden rule. WOW. I mean you know it’s the golden rule and all but I hadn’t ever focused on it and applied it across the board in my parenting. It’s been amazing and has worked wonderfully with Kye in explaining things from other people’s perspectives. 

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