Britt Monthly Summary: August

Now that we have a new baby at home Britt has just instantly become so grown in our eyes! Here’s everything our BIG girl was up to in August:

Tess: Britt is above and beyond what I had expect of her to be as a big sister. She LOVES to help in every aspect of “mothering” Tess. From throwing away diapers to cleaning up spit-up. She’ll do it all and do it all with the happiest of hearts! It took her a little while to warm up to the idea of the actual baby though. She doesn’t like to hold her or snuggle her for very long and usually her attention towards Tess only comes when Kye is also giving attention to Tess! I love that we were able to bless Britt with a sister and I can’t wait to see their bond grow over time!

Date: Just like with Kye, I also had a date with Britt this month. For her date we just went to get some dessert together after dinner. I get to spend a good bit of time solo with Britt still. She only goes to school three days a week so we have every Tues and Thur morning together! We wanted to go to McDonald’s for our dessert but, of course, their ice cream machine was down. So we drove over to Dairy Queen instead!

Reading: Britt has become more and more interested in reading. She’s always been my active child and has been more into running around than sitting with books but I’m glad to see that’s changing 🙂

When Kye reads out loud to us, Britt wants to read out loud too. So I will read the words and she will repeat them 😉

I love catching her reading on her own. She was reading her big sister book out loud and it was so cute to hear her talking about all the things a baby can and can’t do! Here’s a video!

When we had our newborn pics for Tess we told Britt she could choose anything she wanted as a treat if she did a good job! She chose MUFFINS! Child is ALL about some muffins and especially loves the Muffin Man. We sing about him often 😉

She’s an awesome Mommy to her babies!

Girly Girl: I love having a girly girl! I hope Tess is exactly like Britt in this area! Britt is ALL about accessories and carries around her little purses all the time. She always wants to wear shoes and is always asking if she looks pretty 😉

She also likes to put on her own panties now and 90% of the time puts them on backwards hahaha! Toddler Thongs!

This month I wasn’t on my a-game with keeping my eye on Britt like I usually am (hello newborn haze!) and I walked into my bathroom and found her putting on some Mac makeup. At least she has good taste!

Don’t I look pretty?

Here’s a video!

Independent Play: Britt has grown up SO much this month. Being the “big girl” instead of the “little sister” has been a great thing for her!!! She plays SO much better on her own, is more obedient, and is much more responsible. I know so often you hear about toddlers regressing when a younger baby comes, but this has been the exact opposite case for Britt. She shines in her role as the big sister! I’m so proud of her!

Playing so sweetly lining up toys

Entertaining herself with some busy bags in the pantry

I was more proud of her cleaning it up without having to be told than I was of the mess she made haha

Play-Do is one of her favorite things!

So is dress up 🙂

School: School has been a fabulous thing for Britt. She comes home happy every day. She had one day where she said she pulled a clip because she pushed her friend down on the playground…but we never saw a note home and she still got her treasure box prize that week so I’m not sure if she was being honest or not about that happening? Regardless I still talked to her about pushing and about apologizing. Every day for awhile after that she’d come home and say “oops Mom I forgot to say sorry for pushing” haha.

I have always been nervous about Britt with school. She is just a mover and has such a short attention span. You know those shirts you see that say stuff about how the wearer has a great attention span and then it says “look squirrel!” and it’s a joke about how they can’t hold their attention? THAT is EXACTLY how Britt is. She’s all over the place with her thoughts and jumps from one thing to the next constantly. It will not surprise me ONE BIT if we were to have a teacher at some point try to diagnose her as ADD. This was a concern of mine and I worked a lot with her on sitting still and focusing on a task. So far she’s been doing awesome!!! Her teacher has written me a few times already letting me know what a treasure Britt is and how much she enjoys having her. I’m very, very proud.

It is so funny though because Kye went through three years of preschool and I think only ONCE I had to spray and wash a shirt b/c he got paint on it. Britt? Every. Single. Day. She’s covered in whatever color they were learning that day. Her hands. Her face. All over her clothes! It’s hilarious!

Her love of school has carried over to home and she’s much more into crafts now and making things. She did great making a card with stickers and painting a picture for Daddy’s birthday!

Sweet Girl!

I’ve always loved this pic of me and think of it whenever I see Britt painting 🙂

Games: Kye has been playing games with Zach and I for a long time now and was about Britt’s age when we started. He was needing a later bedtime at this age, but Britt doesn’t. Child LIVES for sleep! She still sleeps from about 1-4 every day for nap and goes down at 7 for the night and many times we have to wake her up at 7:10 the following morning. Even though she’s not staying up late enough to play games with Kye, we started to play games this month with her during other times of the day. She LOVES it! Kye is great at teaching her the rules, of course 😉

Don’t Break the Ice

Helper: Britt has a heart for helping! Her favorite thing is helping me do my daily tasks. Seriously. Even more than playing with toys, she’d rather help! She loves to help unload the dishwasher but her FAVORITE thing is helping me do meal prep. She is obsessed with it!

Of course eating it is fun too 😉

We got Smokin’ Pig this month and had the sweet potato soufflé and she LOVED it!

Helping Daddy make homemade pizza (thanks Keeli!)

Big Girl: In many ways Britt has become such a big girl. She not only helps with Tess around the house but also does amazing when we go places! I took both girls to the chiropractor and I didn’t have to get on to Britt AT ALL. She was a little angel!

She also loves books and reading and one day she RANDOMLY woke super early from her nap and I could just tell there was no way she was going to go back to sleep so I let her have some books to read and she was so cute on the monitor “reading” them all!

Crazy Eyes: Britt always gets food in her hair at dinner. Child is THE messiest eater. So I started telling her to look at her hair and how messy it was and BAM! Britt now has her first crazy eye face (I say first b/c I KNOW this girl is gonna have a lot of silly faces in her future ha!). We will say “Britt look at you hair!” and then all bust out laughing at her funny faces 😉

Gifts: Big thank you to Kori for the fun glow head band and Minnie Mouse stickers and to Larissa for the fun princess coloring pages!

More About Britt:

Britt calls me Mama a lot which is so sweet!
She also says “Hey Sweetheart” to Tess 🙂
She has gotten SO GOOD with her manners! She says “yes ma’am” all the time
Britt responds best to POSITIVE feedback rather than negative. If she does well and we praise her, she will continue to do well.
Favorite movie is Peter Pan (she calls it “Tinkerbelle”)
She always asks to cuddle with me and loves when I rub her face and always rubs my clothing
She struggles at meal times. She’d rather be the entertainment for the meal than eat it 😉 Mrs. Charlotte has a trick where she says “don’t eat my…” to the kids and it really works for Britt!
When the kids spent the night together on our trip they talked and talked and it was BRITT doing the talking. Kye kept trying to get her to go to sleep. Kye said she talked about POOP the whole night haha
She also came in our room in the middle of the night (6 am but if FELT like the middle of the night) fake coughing. She told us that Kye told her to come cough haha
She loves to play “I Spy” but in Britt’s version of the game we say “I spy something red” then we look around to find ALL the red things
She is great at counting and also can now count on her fingers!
Britt has to do EVERYTHING her brother does! When he did the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge…she, of course, wanted to participate. Here’s her video!