Milestones for Brylee

Watching your kids grow is definitely a bitter/sweet thing to do. Why can't Brylee just keep on believing that the Provo tabernacle and the Provo library are both castles. She has to point out the "castles" every time we pass them and asks when she is going to get to go to the top of the castles.

I don't ever want her to know that it is L M N O P and not "Elmo P."

I also don't have the heart to correct her when she tells me ever day that she "wants to do it all MY BYself!"

I want her to wear her shoes around on the wrong feet, put her shirt on backwards and point out the moon EVERY time she sees it.

These are just a few of things that I know are eventually going to change, while I standby watching my little girl grow up. The past few months she has really had some big milestones(in my eyes anyway) so I thought I would write them down.

She is going to be 3 in June and I have held off cutting her hair until now. I just didn't see a point. She has the prettiest hair. She has natural highlights that anyone would pay good money for. Her little baby ends are the only curl shes got, so how could I bring myself to cutting them off. Her sides were shorter than the back so I got the courage and had them evened up by my beautiful sister in law Candice.

Brylee was very brave, she had no problem sitting there patiently while she got her hair cut. I guess that's what you get when you wait this long and they are a bit older.

So here is the before(see what I mean by the highlights)

And After

She also had her first visit to the dentist in March. I wanted to have someone besides myself do the cleaning so I had Kristen or "Christmas" as Brylee calls her give it a go and see how she would do. I stayed behind because, again I thought she would do better without me.

She went back fine, sat in the chair fine, but as soon as Kristen pulled out the spinny toothbrush or in Brys eyes, the loud drill that might hurt me, she kinda panicked. So Kristen came and got me because the last thing we want to do is make her at 2 years old have a bad or negative experience. I sat down with her and showed her my gloves and my kisser(suction) shined the sunshine on her teeth and she agreed to let me polish and floss her teeth. She let Dr. McIff look in her mouth and count her teeth. She got a token and all in all I would call it a success.

Next up, Potty training. She did so amazing with this. I have been slowly introducing her to the idea for a long time now but have been wishy washy with really doing it fully. I started out by showing her some potty videos while she sat on her potty and watched. Read her a few different potty books but she never really seemed interested in wanting to go. In fact she seemed terrified.

I decided to test her one day and kept her in her undies near a potty until she went, because she seemed to hold it and hold it until I put her diaper back on her. I was determined not to put the diaper on her til she went. Mess or no mess.

I started feeding her water early, and by 11:00 I knew she had to go. But she just kept on about her day holding on to it. 12 comes around and we had lunch, played after lunch and by now it is 1 and time for her nap. I had worked so hard all morning following her around like a hawk and I was not going to give up and put her diaper back on her. That is big for me because I am a mean mom that hardly ever lets her miss her nap, because if she misses her nap we both get to pay for it.

So we kept playing, doing puzzles, coloring, etc. I started to see her getting uncomfortable. I knew she couldn't hold it forever. She started to cry and I ran her over to the potty and held her there. She wanted to get off and kept asking for her diaper. I held her, until she went FINALLY. She was crying the whole time.

We had a line of toys that had been up for months. Barbie, teapot set, books etc. They had dust on them, that is how long we had been trying to bribe her and she could care less about the toys. So when she got done I put on a big show for her and telling her how big and good she did and showered her with the toys and Cadbury mini eggs. I swear I saw a light bulb go off. From that point on she just went. Like it has been part of her life the whole time. Of course I had to give her a mini egg everytime, two for #2. She has never had an accident at night and has had only 2 during the day and that was because she got too busy playing outside. It felt like forever getting her to that point but really she was very easy when it came down to it.

Since I know nobody would appreciate the picture of her standing next to her first poopy, I will give you this one of her putting a sticker on her sticker chart.

And note to self: A newborn and potty training at the same time is not very enjoyable. She was fully potty trained when Aleah was 6 weeks old. I think I deserve a miniegg or 2 for that one. I am glad I stuck with it.

Way to go Brylee!

We took her to fly her first kite. She loved it!

Little sister came along, but it was just too windy to get her out. I am sure she still enjoyed the kite flying.

And Brylee becoming a big sister to Aleah is a pretty big milestone. She has been the best big

sister I could ask for. She has been nothing but sweet to her. Loves on her, kisses her, sings to

her and when she cries I hear Brylee scream from the other room " I'm coming sister!" She is a little sweetheart, I sure love her.