Monthly Summary – November

I know…right now you are ALL dying for the delivery story! I’m really sorry but it’s gonna be a couple more days. I haven’t been able to work on it b/c I had to rush order Christmas presents, Christmas outfits, and nursery decor for this new baby girl of mine 😉 I’m actually only TWO blog entries behind from the delivery story so I’m going to post those first…starting with Kye’s monthly summary from November!

Gotta Go Show Mommy: Since Kye was born bath time has been “Daddy time.” Zach’s job is never regular with hours…some days he’s home so early that they get a TON of time together, sometimes he’s out of town for days, and sometimes he gets home just in time for bed. It all depends. I LOVE that Z does bath every night that he can as it’s so important for Daddy to be part of Kye’s daily routine and not just be there to play with or discipline ya know? After bath each night Kye dries off with an animal hooded towel and every night, without fail, I hear him say to Zach “Can I go show Mommy?” Our new thing is he “sneaks” up behind me and roars to scare me since he’s a lion. It’s really cute!

Smoothie: When I had my leg issues I started drinking a smoothie each morning with a banana in it to hopefully help my potassium levels. Kye LOVED our morning smoothies (I got sick of them after 2 weeks and switched to a vitamin instead). Every morning he’d ask “smoothie?” and he’d help me make it. He could even tell you EVERY ingredient we put in it (milk, yogurt, strawberries, banana, ice, dash of sugar).

Tower: We’ve been playing a LOT of blocks around here lately and Kye loves to build towers as well as stables for his toy horses to hide in. I built the base of this one but he did the rest…it’s a GREAT way to keep him busy and he loves it! Here’s a video of him with his tower.

Being Silly: Kye is at SUCH a fun age where is little personality is 100% his OWN! I am able to leave him by himself and trust that he’s not getting into anything he shouldn’t (I check on him constantly, of course) but it’s always funny when I walk in to check and he’s doing something silly. Not to make us laugh or to get out of trouble or something – just all by himself being funny. I found him like this the other morning just going full blast in a conversation with himself 😉

Dress Up: I know at age 3 is when most kids get into dressing up and I’m excited about that age! Kye has gotten a lot more involved in pretend play and that is starting to carry over into the world of dressing up as well. Here Kye is turning a pirate toy into an earring and wore his soldier hat around the house (and even in the car) for a whole day!

Coloring: Since starting school I’ve seen a BIG improvement in Kye’s coloring. He’s always been “good” at it and enjoys it but now I see variety in what he creates. Here he signed a birthday card…notice the really good smiley face?!?! NO JOKE he did that on his own! Now…I don’t think he knew it was a smiley face but still!

He’s also gotten better about doing smaller strokes and I can tell he’ll be coloring in the lines soon!

Swim: For the month of November Kye did swim lessons with Tiny Bubbles once a week. I did take some video and pictures but really the point of the lessons was just to get him in the water. I don’t want him to lose the skills he learned last spring and I don’t know if we’ll be able to do more lessons this spring! Ms Margie is SO awesome and she did a great job with him. He really, really LOVES to swim and with our pool being too cold it was nice to tell him “we get to go to Margie’s pool!” Almost every lesson went really smoothly. One he had a hard time and I think it was all the anticipation of the baby coming. He learned some new ways to swim (shark arms!), blowing bubbles to help him hold his breath longer, and learned how to put his face under the water and pick up something. Hopefully this little month of lessons will help him to only be an even better swimmer this summer!

Pets: I ALWAYS thought boys loved dogs…well I was wrong! Kye will tell you his best friend is ZEKE (our cat!). He calls for Zeke all the time (“here Zekey Zekey”) and makes kiss noises for him. Zeke visits Kye in his bed after each nap and sometimes before too. They cuddle and it’s really sweet. The dogs, on the other hand, typically can’t stand Kye. They run in the other direction when possible and Levi growls at him ALL the time.  It’s probably because Kye is pretty rough with them and one of his favorite games is chasing them around the house, especially running around the circle of the kitchen/living room! Here was a rare moment that Sadie was cuddled up next to him during movie time.

Hiding: Kye LOVES to play in “Mommy and Daddy’s bed” and hide. He has us stack all the pillows around him and on top of him then tells us to “come find him” I pretty much have to pretend to look around the entire house before spotting him 😉

“where’s kye???”

“there he is!”

Tea: Since I was sick pretty much the entire month of Nov I drank a TON of warm tea. Kye would always ask me about it and wanted to share so I warmed him up a little cup of milk and put a spoonful from my glass in it. He felt SO grown up. We do plan to let him have hot chocolate since it’s a Christmas tradition we love…but we haven’t gotten around to it yet!

Leaves: We have ONE and ONLY one tree in our yard. It’s a super pretty pecan tree but OH MY GOSH the amount of leaves! Our poor pool (and my poor hubby)!!! Zach and Kye spent some time outside raking up all the leaves and Kye did the typical, adorable, kid thing and ran in the pile.

Gettin’ ready…

set…

GOOOOO

here’s a video of him

so fun!

Mr. Independent: I’ve said this before…Kye’s independence makes me SO proud b/c it’s a MAJOR parenting goal of mine. Especially with adding a new member to the family, it’s so important that he can do things on his own. He takes off his socks and shoes every time we get home (and will put them wherever I tell him). He’ll always take his plate and such to the sink. He’ll do ANYTHING I ask of him…from getting something, to putting something away, to finding something etc. He doesn’t really know how to dress himself yet, but he’s wanting to learn so I’m trying to help him! His first thing he wants to master is putting his socks on. I told him to put the line on his toes…he ended up needing help but he’s getting there with it!

Blitzen ready: While Zach and I were busy getting ready for the baby’s arrival, Kye liked to “help” too. His BIG thing right now is putting stuff into bags. He saw our hospital bags were packed and he wanted to pack his own so he went around the house adding all the stuff he “needed” to bring with us. Yes, that included coasters…

He also LOVES to play in the nursery. Like we live in there. I figured it’s a good thing because he’ll enjoy spending time in there with the baby right? He does know he has to ASK MOMMY before opening the nursery door (I could just see him busting in on the kid during naps). We play a lot of this game where Kye is in “charge” and he puts all of his stuffed animals and Mommy and Daddy to “bed” and we all “sleep.” He will whisper the ENTIRE time (like sometimes over an hour of play…) Here’s a video! He has been looking VERY forward to becoming a big brother and tells me all about how there is a baby in his belly too, here’s a video of that. Here’s how I found the bassinet one day after he had been playing in the nursery…

I think that baby sheep might be at risk for SIDS with all that stuff!!!

Football: Well, what can I really do?!?! You can’t fight genetics huh? Kye LOVES football. He wants to tackle Daddy and throw the football all the time. My preference is still golf but I would choose football over basketball (I just DO NOT get the game) or especially baseball (how many games in the hot sun?!?!). We found these pjs at Carter’s and could NOT pass them up…If you remember #85 was Zach’s number!!! How cool is that?!?!

Other Monthly Moments:

• Kye has become very into kissing…and will give Mommy BIG kisses. It kinda threw me for a loop at first and made me a little uncomfortable but I’ve heard from LOTS of moms who have sons that this is a typical thing. He doesn’t give any big kisses to anyone else and will grab the back of my head to pull me into this kiss! So funny!He will also hold my hand often while kissing me. Very sweet. Here’s a video of the big kisses…and here’s another video of him singing a song he made up called “I love Mommy” He also has started to “fix” my hair before bed. I’m a girl who LOVES having her hair played with so this is one stage that I hope lasts a looooong time! And when he hugs me he’s started to pat my back, very sweet.
• After they made muscles at school last month, Kye has become muscle obsessed. Of course, Zach (and Mr Rusty) LOVE this and think it’s hilarious to ask him about his muscles. Here’s a video of him showing them and here’s a video of him kissing them.
• Routine has always been important to Kye and now he’s requesting it. Every day after school as soon as he gets in the car he says “I want two sandwiches!” I don’t give them to him everyday but when I do his “two sandwiches” are really just one slice of whole wheat bread, peanut butter on the whole thing, apricot preserves on half, then fold it in half and cut it in two 😉
• Every time Kye uses the bathroom he says “BIG poopie/BIG teetee” and is SO proud of it. Even if it’s technically a small poopie haha He’s gotten REALLY good about going to the bathroom on his own and on Thanksgiving day he actually went into the bathroom at Mom’s and teeteed and pooped and didn’t even tell us he was going to do it!
• When Kye gets into trouble he’s started saying “I’m a good boy.” This bothers me. He is ALWAYS a good boy and I never want him to think that if he acts out or does something that he shouldn’t do that it means he’s a “bad boy.” I always correct him and say “you are always a good boy Kye but sometimes you made bad choices.” Zach and I are both working on saying to him “make good choices” over “be a good boy”
• Here’s a video of Kye and Daddy enjoying the left overs from my wrapping craziness!
• At over 2 1/2 years old he STILL only has two of his two year molars
• He gets so excited and loves to talk so much that he often will stutter over his words. I’m not overly concerned about it as he doesn’t get stuck on a letter, more like he will repeat the same word over and over again until he thinks of the next thing he wants to say (“that that that”). My dad had a stutter as a kid so it is something we’re watching
• Kye got his first busted lip this month from running full speed into the couch. He only cried for a minute, but it still counts!
• Dancing and singing have become two of Kye’s favorite things to do lately…which is funny seeing as I don’t enjoy either! Here’s a video of him “dancing” in the playroom. His favorite song is his ABC’s. Here’s a video of him singing them (he knows the whole song!) and another video of him singing them.
• His prayer this month has been: “thanks mommy, thanks food, thanks beach, thanks pool AMEN!”
• He will often come up to me and whisper “shhh mommy! i need to tell you secret” usually the secret is about Disneyworld so, duh, I love hearing that!
• He’s started to take FOREVER eating (kinda like he took forever to nurse too)…he usually takes a good 45 min to finish a meal
• He will try to tell us that we need to do something and say “say yes sir to me” um NO! Kye is not the boss and we have to remind him of this on a daily basis
• Like I mentioned, he’s very routine oriented (I wonder why?!?). He insists on wearing only cotton pjs for bed (as a baby he would only sleep if we used the fleece swaddle) and insists on changing clothes right when we get home from somewhere and insists on changing into pjs for nap time. He goes through like 3-4 wardrobe changes a day!
• Here’s a video of wild man running down the hallway
• When people meet Kye we often get comments on how well he speaks…which is funny to me b/c it took him SO long to talk! Guess he made up for it! While he does speak very well, I love the little words he messes up too. He says “hopstibul” for “hospital” and “pajons” for “pjs”
• Since we started celebrating the holiday season so early this year, Kye and I have been listening to a LOT of Christmas songs and it’s so fun! We hear “our song” a lot and it’s Bruce Springsteen’s version of “Santa Claus is Coming to Town.” He’s got his own taste in music and will say “this is a GOOD song Mommy!” when something upbeat comes on, and when something is slow he’ll say “Please change it to a GOOD song!”
• With the baby coming soon, Kye began to act out during this month. I’m hoping to write a blog entry on it so I won’t go into details here but one thing we started to do with him was let him keep some books on his little shelf by his bed and a touch light and if he wakes early from nap or night sleep he may turn on the light and read a book. 

November 2011 was the last month of Kye getting to be an ONLY child!!! Life will forever be altered from here forward for him, but I’m praying that I am still able to give him all the one on one attention I can and still track all of his fun moments and milestones!