The Journey of Parenthood…

Kye Monthly Summary: October

Here is everything going on with Kye from October!

Growth: One morning I got Kye dressed for school then realized his pants were too short. I know for most parents this isn’t some big deal. If anything it’s a hassle…especially when the child just got into wearing a 4t and it meant I’d have to rush out and find 5t stuff. But hello…I will GLADLY welcome size 5t in this house!!! With the growth delay issues we dealt with earlier this year we’ve been doing all we can from our end to insure Kye’s proper growth…and to see these pants being too short made me SO EXCITED!!! I feel like a 4 year old kid needing a size 5t pants due to the length is a GOOD SIGN right???? Anyways I was so happy I still sent him to school in the pants and had him wear them that night when we went out to dinner with the whole family. I loved hearing people say they were too short 😉

Yes, the shirt is too little too 😉

Britt, of course, wanted to copy Kye’s poses!

Kye also got new shoes this month and was super pumped about them!

Perfectionist: I know Kye is a lot like me. We are both first borns and I think that has a lot to do with our similar personality traits. Something I have ALWAYS struggled with is the “need” to be perfect. I know many people think a perfectionist is someone who considers themselves to be perfect. But actually the exact opposite is true. When you are a perfectionist you always feel like a failure. I don’t want that for Kye and this month I especially noticed his struggles with it. The big thing that made me realize it was something we need to start working on was one night when he and Britt played with the magnetic letters. We have two sets of them and, while they were playing, the sets got mixed up. We were in a rush to clean up and just left them mixed up and stuck them in a bag together. Kye was SO upset by this. He wanted them all to be separated and where they belonged and he ended up having quite the meltdown about it and it ended up resulting in a spanking for him due to his poor choices. 

Pre-meltdown Playing!

I noticed with his school work too that everything was always “perfect.” His teacher made a comment to me that Kye will erase his name over and over again until it’s “perfect.” He was doing some coloring pages from school as makeup work and I told him he did a good job and he said “no ma’am it’s perfect” so I replied and told him that only God is perfect. So then I asked him “so Kye who is perfect?” And he said “me and you.” He totally missed the point haha! I really made it a goal to work with him on it and I started having “Kye time” when he woke up from nap.

He will typically get up around 3:15 or 3:30 and Britt doesn’t get up until 4:00 so he comes in our room and colors and draws. While practicing his writing and things I try not to focus on him getting it all “perfect” but instead on the effort. I also noticed that he will give up on things that he doesn’t think he’s perfect at. Which is a lot like me as well. If I can’t do something well then I don’t like to do it at all. I did my research on it and it’s a common trait among gifted individuals (I wanna write a post about giftedness someday…but long story short…as someone who was in the gifted program and does “think differently” I hope my kids aren’t gifted!). So during our time together I started telling him things to draw. At first he resisted and kept saying he didn’t know how to draw that or he couldn’t do it. I pushed him to try and told him the more he tries the better he will get at things and how fun it is to learn new skills. I kept reinforcing the whole “no one is perfect” theme and he started to finally have FUN with it!!!

I told him to draw some aliens 🙂

And we even got out a toy alien to look at as a model!

By doing “thinking outside the box” type exercises I’m hoping to help him continue to love learning but not to be so hard on himself about things. When striving so hard for perfection he loses the enjoyment out of the tasks he has to complete and that’s no fun! I know it’s not something I can change about him as it’s a character trait, much like my own, but I hope I can help him work through it and find ways to accept that no one is ever perfect!

Drawing: Kye loves to draw. Loves loves loves it. Anything with drawing or writing or coloring and he’s totally content. He will sit with me in my room for a solid hour just happily writing away in his notebooks! I have never enjoyed drawing but think it’s a wonderful thing and I’m glad Kye has such an interest in it and has a way to express himself creatively! 

He did these blocks all on his own with the numbers, in order, from 1-20! Here’s a video of him telling me about it! I didn’t know he could write numbers, especially not this high!

I loved this tree picture with the roots and grass and rainbow!

Also he’s getting good at houses and crosses!

Letters: Along with drawing and writing, Kye also loves letters. He loves putting them in order. He loves making words with them. Basically, kid is a total nerd for some letters 😉 I love that he loves to learn new things and I love his excitement to share it all with us! He is always so proud and asks me to take pictures of him 🙂

Lunch with Mrs Liz: So Kye had his first “date” this month. At church the kids earn Bible Bucks for various reasons. Having their Bibles for class, reciting memory verses, etc etc. They can choose to spend them in the General Store each day or they can save them for different prizes. Kye decided to start saving his Bible Bucks for lunch with Mrs. Liz. He ADORES Mrs. Liz and it’s so sweet. He was so excited when the day finally came that he had enough!

Mommy confession: I was freaking out. I mean I was super proud of him and excited for him but I was also freaking out. It was his first time going somewhere with a non-family member. I’m so thankful this first experience was with someone I trust so much!!! I knew he was in great hands and I tried to be super calm and relaxed about it. Zach installed the car seat in their car for them and they brought him back home safe and sound! I did go over with him his options for drinks though as I still am anti-soda and anti-chocolate milk and I know most people wouldn’t think to not offer him those options at his age! He knew he could either have water, white milk or lemonade 😉 Of course, he got lemonade haha. 

Kye got to choose the restaurant and he said it was a very fun day! I also loved seeing the pics on Facebook that Mrs. Liz and Mr. John posted 🙂 Kye is already saving those Bible Bucks up again to get another date with his favorite lady 😉

Christmas Prep: I know it was only October but I was trying to come up with Christmas ideas for the kids! I let Kye look through some catalogs and circle things he liked to give me some ideas and then we had a date day together to go to Toys R Us and make a wishlist for both him and Britt. We walked all the aisles of the store and scanned anything he might like! He’s at an age where he simply wants everything so I tried to help him narrow things down and explained to him that Mommy and Daddy only spend a certain amount of money at Christmas and that Santa only brings three things so he needed to make choices of his favorite things he wanted. We had a great time together and I got some great ideas for him!

“Tablet”: The kids crack me up with their “tablets” or “note pads” as they call them. We’ve had these magnadoodle things forever but recently they have become the hot item in our house! They both walk around with them all the time writing down “notes.” I guess it’s the kids version of technology?

Eating: I’ve always heard that preschoolers are picky and Kye has his likes and dislikes for sure but I feel like the tough picky stage is behind us with him. He’ll try something if we tell him to try it and he’ll eat X amount of bites of whatever we say to eat without much complaining anymore. He knows he’ll need to eat 10 beans at dinner or all of his “fries” (sweet potato or butternut squash fries I make) or whatever other healthy items are on his plate. He has the typical preschooler favorites (he could live off peanut butter and jelly sandwiches) but overall I’m satisfied with how he eats!

School pics: I’ve never intentionally had Kye miss school on picture day but out of the four opportunities he’s had up until this year for school pics, he’s only been there for ONE of them. Last year we were out of town both for the fall pics and spring pics! And the year prior we were only in town for the spring ones as we were also gone for the fall ones then! Funny how that worked out huh? It was a blessing in disguise because I wasn’t tempted to buy them. Sure, the cheapest package is only $20 and that’s not bad at all. But I try to think long term with my parenting decisions and if I buy Kye’s school pics then I’ll have to buy Britt’s. And Kid #3’s and Kid #4’s. And pretty dang quickly that “only” $20 turns into a hefty $80. Um no way! So when he happened to be at school for fall pics this year and when we got them and they were SO adorable I resisted the temptation to buy them. Although it was tough to do!!!

Other Stuff Kye was up to this Month:

  • One day I got to school early to pick Kye up and while in the pick up line I could see him playing on the playground. I thought it was a good opportunity to observe him and enjoyed watching. Until I saw him hit a kid!!! He was in a spot where the teachers didn’t see it but I sure did! He got in the car that day and we had a BIG talk about how we make good choices all the time even when no one else is watching. He told me the other boy hit him first (which he did, as I also saw) but I explained to him that if someone hits him the Jesus-like thing to do is to simply tell the child that it’s not nice to hit and it’s not being like Jesus and to walk away. We don’t hit back. I talked about the whole Jesus says to turn the other cheek thing. The next morning I told him he needed to go to school and apologize to the boy and to his teacher. He was worried that he’d pull a clip or get into trouble when he told his teacher sorry but I assured him that she would be proud of him for being honest and doing the right thing. I also told him that I didn’t care if he got in trouble at school or not, if I saw it happening again he’d for sure be getting into trouble at home! 
  • The kids have been playing GREAT upstairs in the playroom together. One time when I brought them down I asked Kye if they had been sweet and he said “yes ma’am but for a little bit we also forgot to be sweet”
  • Zach built a super tall block tower and told the kids they could knock it over and it was SO anticlimactic b/c Kye was SO cautious about it haha here’s a video
  • Kye told me that when he grows up he’s going to need servants to help him with his house! It totally shocked me until I realized he probably got it from our Bible stories. Obviously we had a nice long talk about how we don’t have servants and how Mommy and Daddy don’t have anyone helping them around the house!
  • We passed by a cross on the side of the road and Kye said “Look Mommy it’s where Jesus died!”
  • He calls Vaseline, “gasoline”
  • During one of his prayers Kye said “be with those who are mean and fill them with your love”
  • He told me we need to build an American flag for our house so people will know we are in America
  • One day at chapel at school Kye volunteered to say the prayer. That day Mrs. Charlotte told me that the director of the school stopped her to tell her how amazing his prayer was and how he sounded like a little man. I had FOUR separate parents stop me and tell me that his prayer moved them to TEARS. I truly do believe that Kye has a gift with his prayers as it’s the #1 compliment we hear about him at church as well. I’m so proud!!!
  • Tucking him in one night he said to me “I love you bigger than the seas, do you know that?”
  • Britt has hit the annoying little sister phase and they argued constantly in the car this month. The whole way home from school (all crazy 12 minutes of it!) they would bicker. She likes to repeat the same words over and over and it gets under his skin. She will point to all the buildings and say “house house” and it annoys him so much and causes him to act out and then they both get into trouble. I worked with him on ignoring her and letting me handle things and not letting her cause him to make bad choices. Whew, it was exhausting but it did improve!!!

Here’s so more cute pics of my sweet boy!

Emily Parker
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2 Comments

  1. Robyn Mullican
    December 22, 2013 / 1:15 am

    Those school pictures are ADORABLE!

    Reply
  2. Michelle
    December 26, 2013 / 6:08 pm

    Oh my goodness, you are raising such a sweetheart!!! The date story is precious! And the pic of Britt copying his pose is too funny 🙂

    Reply

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