Monthly Summary – January

January was a big adjustment month for me with Brittlynn so poor Kye didn’t get quite the amount of Mommy attention he’s used to! Here’s what he was up to during that month:

Playing: I’m thankful we went pretty overboard for Christmas as the new toys are for sure coming in handy! Kye will play on his own so well. He’s very very independent and now that I’m busy nursing a baby I’m so thankful we worked so hard to achieve this!!! Independent playtime has paid off!  Here’s a video of Kye playing with his toys and making them sing over and over. Here’s a another video of Kye giving me “prizes” and “treasures.” Kye has a huge imagination and I love to watch him in pretend play. He uses these old wooden peg games I’ve had for ages and calls them his “cakes.” He goes around singing happy birthday to all of us and having us make a wish and eat the cake. In this video he’s feeding Sadie her cake.

playing with his etch-a-sketch

He got this neat book thing for Christmas where it reads out loud to you…it took me awhile to get around to downloading it all online but now that I have he really enjoys it!

His room time length is now 40 min and he’ll often ask to stay up there longer! Daddy built him this house and he was so proud of it!

I don’t have all of his toys on rotation (his cars are in constant play!) but I do have lots of toys stashed away to pull out randomly. It makes them seem new and helps keep him very entertained! I am not a believer in having junk all over my fridge so I keep some magnet toys in a drawer next to the fridge that we will pull out when we’re making dinner or if I’m busy with laundry or something nearby. He is getting pretty good at letter recognition, E being his favorite letter for sure! Here’s a video of him with his letters.

Hiding: Kye still loves to hide and now he’s getting pretty creative about it. He will hide and we won’t know it then we really will have to look to find him! One day he got smart and dumped out his toys and hid inside the baskets. I seriously didn’t see him for awhile. Haha!

so silly!

Independence: Kye has gotten very independent about going to the bathroom. He can go into the bathroom, pull down his pants, use his potty, dump his potty, flush the toilet, then pull back up his pants. Pretty exciting!!! It’s GREAT timing too as when he has to go potty while I’m nursing he can handle it all himself (as long as I leave a light on!) I realized from Kelly’s facebook that we really should have graduated to the big potty by now. It’d make it MUCH easier to just have him go in there and not have to mess with dumping the small one. I used a seat cover for him to sit on and go potty but it was annoying to be constantly taking off and putting back on so we ended up investing in a toilet seat that has a toddler seat inside of it (more on that in Feb’s post). It was also tricky for him pull down his pants and get up the stool by himself. Very awkward! He did feel like a big boy though!!!

While Kye got a lot more independent with the potty this month, we also starting having some issues. He was constipated for awhile then he got the UTI. With a UTI kids will lose some bladder control and we did notice some accidents. He went potty way more often. Part of me wondered if it was the UTI, or because he got to use the “big boy toilet” or because he was wanting attention. Who knows!

Kye has also gotten independent when it comes to his clothing. He likes to put on his underwear and pants on his own. He will not attempt a shirt yet which I find interesting because I thought it was often one of the first things kids would want to do??? Kye is VERY into what he wears. He would live in pjs if I let him and he’ll often ask to change clothes right when he walks in the door from school. I guess he likes being comfortable! He came out with his pj shorts and underwear like this:

it’s a good look right?

I literally laughed out loud when I saw this site!!!

He also enjoys dressing himself in our clothes…

No, he wasn’t putting on makeup with that brush – he used it to “paint” the house

Our Time: My days used to be filled with time of just Kye and I. Now most of my time is spent nursing. While that does take up a good bit of time, I don’t feel like Kye has really missed out on a lot of mommy time. I still interact with him while nursing and Brittlynn sleeps so much that he and I still get alone time. Right now her schedule is nice because she’s asleep at noon so we get to have lunch just the two of us and some play time together before nap. Plus I can do all of his nap routine with him (potty, story, pjs, prayers) without worrying about her (unless she’s crying…which isn’t fun!). It was so pretty out during this month that we often ate lunch out back!

Playing bowling together

Snacks: For a long time Kye was not eating a snack at all after nap. He’d just eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner. But lately he’s been wanting a snack and I have a bin FILLED with individually wrapped snacks in the pantry. I use these for trips, church and errand running. He LOVES to pick out one for a snack and knows the rule that he is only allowed to have one. What’s funny is that he recently told me to “go talk on the phone mommy” when he was picking out his snack. I realized that when I’m on the phone I’m more likely to give into things…that’s FOR SURE stopping now that he called me out on it haha! He will try to get me busy doing something then ask for “two snacks mommy???” sneaky kid! Here’s a video of Kye picking out his snack

saying “just one!”

Eyes: Kye was born with blue eyes. I have blue eyes and have always hoped they would stay blue. We noticed as he got older he had one dark brown spot on his eye, and I had a feeling it meant those pretty blues would soon fade to brown. He now has such interesting eyes! They are such a mixture of colors!!! Some blue, some brown, some green. Zach’s eyes are very similar! Zach says he has hazel eyes so maybe that’s what Kye has too!

Hair: Zach and I have had a looooooong debate about Kye’s hair. Zach really wants Kye to have a longer hair style. And I like it shorter. You can tell in the pictures…we let it get long then I get beyond annoyed and chop it off only to let it grow again. I made Zach a deal that for the months of Jan and Feb we’d let Kye’s hair grow and see if whatever Zach envisions is possible. His birthday, our family pictures and Casey’s wedding are all in March…if Kye’s hair doesn’t look like Zach wanted it to look (or if I loathe it) then we’ll cut it before those big events. Stayed tuned to see what happens 😉

Stevie’s House: Kye LOVES spending time with his friends and adores the Megow girls (Crissy included as one of the girls!). It was fun being pregnant together with Crissy but it kinda stinks too because she was MEGA pregnant when I had a newborn and now she has a newborn and I’m mega busy with Britt. So we don’t get to help each other out as much as we wish we could! It was super sweet of Crissy and Seth to offer to come get Kye for a couple of hours one afternoon in Jan. He went over there to play and eat dinner and had a blast! Here are the pics Crissy put up on Facebook of him from their fun afternoon!

 Ladies man 🙂

Big Brother: Kye is an AMAZING big brother. He’s far surpassed all expectations I had for him. He is SO sweet and loving to Brittlynn. He adores her and wants to spend all of her awake time with her. He has to have her monitor to watch her when she’s sleeping. It’s SO sweet. He loves helping me go in and wake her up after her naps and he likes to be in her room with me and sing with me to her while we swaddle her to get her ready for bed. I’ve posted these pictures on Britt’s weekly posts but I think some deserve to be included here too! Here is a video of Kye helping me wake Britt up, so sweet. I love how he calls her “sweet girl” and how she smiles at him. Here is a video of her watching him talk and him asking to hold her.

Playing with his sis

reading night-night story as a family

bossy already

I couldn’t pick just ONE favorite of them together from this month, so here’s three:

Kye hasn’t tried too hard to compete with Brittlynn for attention. He hasn’t asked to sleep in a crib, suck on a bottle (or me for that matter) or take a paci. However, he LOVES to play with her stuff. He thinks it’s hilarious. I’m thankful that I set boundaries with her toys before she was born so he knows better than to sit in her swings or bouncers but he will sit in the bumbo and fall over on purpose and anytime we’re in her room he LOVES to play with her toys. He gets them all out to show to her 🙂 Here’s a video of him showing her all of her stuffed animals. Here’s a video of him showing her all of her toys.

I’m one blessed Mommy!!!

More Stuff Kye was up to in Jan:

• Kye is very social but you can’t force him to talk until he’s ready. He’s started to say “I’m done talking” and “I don’t want to talk about it.” I’ve learned just to ask him once about school or something then leave him alone if he doesn’t want to talk…he eventually will open up on his own time and talk and talk and talk about things! He’s teaching me patience 😉
• He’s learning to count on his hand and will ask me if he can count on my fingers
• He told me about some of the things he got to eat at Seth and Crissy’s and said “don’t freak out Mommy.” Cracked me up!!!
• He loves the movie Tangled and when I tucked him in one day I told him I love him and he said “I love you mommy” then I said “I love you more” and he said “I love you most” (which is from the movie). It was so cute that he did it on his own and now we’ll often say it to each other!
• When something goes wrong I’ll hear him say “oh great” Guess he’s learning sarcasm early! Oops!
• Mom told me a story when he was at her house this month and she caught him with his hand down his pants. She asked him if he needed to go potty and he said “No ma’am I’m just tickling my privates.” 
• We talked about getting married and I asked who he wants to marry someday and he said “joseph” which made me laugh b/c he was thinking of Mary when I said “marry” 😉
• He does a GREAT job of being quiet in Brittlynn’s room. At first I wasn’t going to allow him to go into her room but when she had trouble sleeping and i found myself in her room quite often I didn’t think that was fair to him. Instead the rule is he has to be SILENT when in her room and he does great at this!!!
• When I posted about choices one of my readers had a great suggestion about doing a reward chart! I found a magnetic dry erase one on amazon and it came with star magnets which I liked. I don’t like the idea of rewarding him for things he should do but I agreed with the reader that right now in his life he needs more PRAISE and LOVE! I thought it’d help remind me to praise him and I put things on the chart that I knew he’d get a star for (like putting away his dishes at dinner since he’s a pro at that) and things that he sometimes wouldn’t get a star like no spankings or not fussing when movie time ended. He really loves doing it and the stars themselves were the rewards. The BAD thing about it is finding the time every day to actually do it…so it’s erratic which isn’t my style. I pretty much have already abandoned it but want to pick it back up. I just need to plan a time each day where we can do it!!! Something consistent!
•  Poor kid will be like 10 before his two year molars stop coming in…we do see another one starting to pop through though!
• At bed time (both nap and night) he’s started to try to fight it. It was a tough spot this month. LOTS and lots of spankings. I tried everything under the sun but the bottom line is sometimes he just needed to be spanked. He would purposefully do things in order to get out of sleeping…like kicking off his blanket the minute we left the room then yelling out for us to fix it. We would never punish him for not sleeping. And he never tried to actually get out of the bed. But he would get in trouble for yelling and screaming quite often! Thankfully it was a phase!
• He loves the humidifier in Britt’s room and will play with the vapor from it when I have to go in there
• He fell in the back yard when outside with Daddy and got a pretty bad scratch on his face (I edit it out of most pictures). It wouldn’t have taken so long to heal but he continues to pick the scab off over and over again!!! 
• They sing a song about the weather at school and it’s translated to a lot of weather talk around our house. 🙂
• Kye loves to play work just like Daddy. I love the way he calls computers his “peters” haha You can hear how he says it in this video. 
• Kye is like his mama with his dreaming. He has very vivid dreams and will wake up sometimes thinking they are real and will call out to us. Once I went in there and he said his paper had fallen behind his bed…he didn’t have any paper to begin with! He also said one morning that during the night he had to call daddy at school to bring him crackers
• While helping me bake cookies with Brittlynn he was on the step stool helping and fell off and hit the tile floor in the kitchen. Instead of worrying about himself or crying when he fell he immediately jumped up and went to Brittlynn and kept saying how sorry he was. I think he was worried he scared her? It was SO precious that she was his main concern!
• Kye’s become very interested in his butt…I know so random! But I assume it’s similar to when kids stick stuff up their noses? I caught him a couple times this month sticking stuff in that spot and he had me come into his room during nap one day b/c he “pooped” when really he had just picked something out of his butt…
• He is really wanting a bike but says “I don’t want to wear the bicycle hats” looks like the helmet battle will be a tough one!
• In attempting to not have to go to sleep Kye has started to “march” to bed. He likes to count then march to his pillow then count and jump down to lay down on his pillow. Anything to eat away the time! Here’s a video of it!
• Whenever we meet someone or see people he always wants to know everyones names
• Since he still isn’t a big veggie eater but loves sandwiches I’ve started putting green bean baby food on his sandwiches. I put it on before the peanut butter and he never even notices it’s there! Score!
• Kye’s become pickier about his clothing choices so I’ll typically give him two choices of what to wear around the house (he still doesn’t have any issues with the clothing I pick out for when we go places). His favorite is his robot t-shirt
• He randomly told me to “shut up” which surprised me and caught me off guard as it’s not something Zach and I even say. Maybe he got it from school??? I told him it wasn’t a nice thing to say and not to say it again!
• Kye still enjoys the outdoors. He just loves the freedom to RUN! He’ll run around the entire back yard over and over again. He even makes the dogs get sick of it! Here’s a video of him running.
• He showered with Zach to save time one night and loved it! Zach let him go to town with the shaving cream and he had a blast
• Britt and I typically pick him up from school once a week and when we do I will make his lunch ahead of time and bring it in the car. He LOVES eating out of the box so it’s like a special treat but it also is a time saver. Since she’s getting down late for nap and he’s having to rush lunch so he can get down to sleep for his nap…the noon hour is CRAZY and anything I can do to speed it up and make it go smoother I do…the lunch thing really helps!
• Kye still loves to sing, here’s a precious video of him singing “Twinkle Twinkle”
• He has started to take a loooong time to fall asleep at nap. It’s quite often that this happens. He’ll lay in his bed playing or singing and I don’t mind it at all. As long as he stays in the bed I don’t care if he’s asleep or not!

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Emily Parker

Hey Y'all, I'm Emily! I'm a stay at home mom and consider parenting to be my passion. Disney is my happiest place and I love making memories as a family together. I'm a big believer in transparency and share all of my real-life moments as a mother of four.

My work has been featured on Love What Matters, Today Parenting and Babywise.Life. I'm also honored to be a member of the Babywise Friendly Blog Network.

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