The Journey of Parenthood…

Kye Monthly Summary: August

August was, obviously, a crazy month for our family with Tess being born the last day of July 🙂 But here is everything Kye had going on during this month!

Flashback: Aunt Karen just sent me the pics she took from her spend the night party with Kye from back in June! I wanted to include them here because it’s so cute to see how much fun they had together 🙂 So thankful for family!

She gave him a laser light and he’s been loving it at home too!

SO sweet together at the soup kitchen!

Tess: The big news in all of our lives this month was TESS! Kye immediately jumped into his role of big brother so smoothly. He adored her right from the start and his love for her is something so special to witness. He loves to sing songs to her, touch her a lot, cuddle up with her and play peek-a-boo. He is NOT as hands on with the help like I had anticipated. He doesn’t have any interest in helping me change diapers, etc. But that’s fine! I love that he loves to “play” with her during her awake time and he always makes that effort to give her attention. It’s so sweet!

Date: This month was tough on the big kids when it came to “Mommy time.” I spent most of my time nursing or sleeping and they had a lot of quality time with Zach and with Mrs. Charlotte. I wanted to make sure I got some special one-on-one time with each of them. Kye and I had a date lunch and it was great! He picked where we ate and he wanted to go to Steak and Shake and then go to The Mix haha!

As a special treat I let him order some lemonade. Our rules are he’s allowed to have white milk, water, or lemonade. He’s never had chocolate milk, tea, or soda! Since it was a special occasion I wanted to let him feel like a “big boy” as much as I could. So I offered him a sip of my sweet tea. He’d never tried it before and I thought it’d be a “special treat” for us that day. He surprised me! He said that sweet tea is not good for you and that since it’s not good for you he didn’t even want to try it. He knew he shouldn’t drink it and didn’t want to try it! I know it was a small thing, but goodness it blew me away!!! Such a lesson for ME in resisting temptations!!! Very proud of him!

He ordered a burger and since the sweet tea treat didn’t work out I taught him how to squirt his own ketchup. Haha! He was ALL about that responsibility! 

We had a great time at The Mix! It was funny b/c the girl who worked there didn’t know I had any other children since it’s a place Kye and I always go together. I felt so bad! I, of course, showed her a bunch of pictures of the girls on my phone to prove their existence 😉

Self Entertained: Kye enjoys self-play. I was asleep a lot of the times when he got up from naps and he would just entertain himself while I got my much needed sleep. He is such a big kid now and it’s a blessing that I can trust him to make good choices and don’t really worry about him at all! He really enjoys drawing, painting, and coloring. It’s so funny b/c I’m def not into those things but I love seeing him enjoy them so much!

I love this picture of him and Britt making s’mores!

Playing Play Dough

Kye is VERY into his art and loves explaining it to us 🙂

Working on a card for Big Daddy

Stomach Bug: The night we came home from the hospital with Tess our house got hit by a stomach bug. Poor Britt started with it and it made it’s rounds. Kye never actually threw up but he didn’t feel well for a couple of days. We loaded him up with pedialite and a lot of rest! 

Reading: Kye is doing so well with his reading skills. At night when I read to the big kids before Britt’s bedtime Kye has started asking to read the story to us. Many of the books he has semi-memorized by now but even just looking at the words as he says them helps build those reading skills. I also make sure to have him look at the words and not just guess the word. He reads exactly the way Zach does. Zach will go by memory or kinda guess what he’s reading rather than actually reading. He’ll like summarize as he reads kinda. Kye is the same way! It’s like dude look at the words and sound ’em out and read them rather than wasting time looking at the pictures and guessing haha!

Checkers: When Kye and I first started playing checkers I was very casual about it. I knew it was beyond his age limit at the time and didn’t want to stress him out or frustrate him with a bunch of rules. Zach, of course, explained the “real way to play” when he played with him. I’ve been very impressed with Kye’s skills! We played and he was so smart to leave all of his guys in places to block me from getting “kinged” We will have to invest in a chess board soon!

School: Kindergarten is NO JOKE. He is still attending a half day program but it’s legit kindergarden. So they are cramming a full day worth of work into a half day time frame. It’s def a little overwhelming! He had his very first homework assignment and it was to write down a recipe for something that used apples. I am SUCH a direction follower and the directions weren’t super clear so I assumed the CHILD would make up the recipe and write it down. I mean it’s his homework, right?!?! He wanted to do a recipe for applesauce so he wrote out the steps of going to the store, buying the applesauce, then eating it. I thought he did great and it was cute! A couple weeks later he came home with a class recipe book filled with all the recipes for apple dishes. I was so embarrassed because all the other children had submitted recipes that their parents legit made (apple pie and such!)  and their parents had written them too!!! Kye’s was the only one written by a student! Haha! At least he did a great job 🙂

I thought that school might take away from his love of writing at home but it def hasn’t! He’s all about spelling out words and writing things! Even with magnets 🙂

Gifts: I have such sweet friends who have been so thoughtful in their gifts for Tess! And a few even thought to get things for the big kids too! I am TERRIBLE about remembering to do that when I buy a baby gift. I always mean to, and I always forget!

Kye loves his glow toy and stickers from Mrs. Kori

And these little coloring pages are his favorite! Thanks Mrs. Larissa!

Another friend, Keeli, was so thoughtful to bring us supplies to make home made pizza! Duh, it was a hit!

Britt Time: Now that we have Tess, Kye and Britt have been lumped together as “the big kids.” I notice I say it a lot and I also write it a lot! I never thought about having a third baby and that it would put the two older kids together as much as it has, but it’s been a GOOD thing for them both! I think it’s really bonded them and has cut down in a major way with the fighting! They have become FRIENDS and I love that!

More About Kye:

  • He was totally grossed out by Tess’s umbilical cord stump! He asked constantly when it was going to be gone 😉
  • One night we had broccoli for dinner. We always have our kids eat some of everything on their plates and the broccoli was not a very big hit so it was one of those “take this many bites before you are finished” situations. I walked in the kids bathroom later that evening and saw broccoli in the sink! And then I let the dogs outback and saw broccoli on the porch! Kye had taken it in his mouth, chewed it, then spit it out haha. It was the first time that’s ever happened so he didn’t get in trouble, we just told him he can’t do it again and he had to clean up the messes. Pretty clever 😉
  • During one of our bedtime talks Kye told me that he asks God to forgive his sins. And that even when he’s at school he will whisper to God and ask for forgiveness. So sweet 🙂
  • The night Tess was born the big kids stayed at Mr. Rusty and Mrs. Charlotte’s house. They told me the next day that Kye had walked in their room at night and told Mr. Rusty he needed to go help his daddy! He did it again one other night that first week we brought Tess home. He slept walked down stairs and into our room. I could tell it was sleep walking because he wasn’t being himself and he had NO memory of it the next day. It worried me because he was walking down the stairs and totally could have gotten hurt! Both times it happened it was a very crazy day that day (Tess’s birthday the kids skipped naps and played at Courtney’s so he was exhausted and the other time it happened at home he had also skipped nap and gone golfing with Zach). Once things were settled down and back to a routine he did fine and it never happened again! It was a great reminder to me how thankful I am for Babywise and that my children always get their rest. If he didn’t always have good sleep I bet he would have issues with sleep walking on a regular basis!
  • Since the kids did spend so much time with Zach…they learned a lot of “Daddy Songs.” I appreciate that Zach makes sure the CONTENT of the songs he lets the kids hear is okay. Here’s a video of them singing Justin Timberlake “Mirrors”
  • This month the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge was making it’s rounds. I LOVED the attention it brought to such a valuable cause. My uncle Spear passed away from ALS and he was such a special person to me. Casey and Jordan were over one day and we were all talking about  it and Kye said he wanted to get to do it so Casey nominated him 🙂 Here’s his video!

Emily Parker
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