It’s been almost 3 months since I have posted anything about the kids, so time for an update!
Raelynn will be 4 in less than 1 month. **cue the tears**
Briar is 18 months old.
I swear, I blink and they have aged by a month.
Raelynn is my cute little ginger.
Her curiosity and thoughts have really expanded in the past couple of months. We have a garden at home and she LOVES helping us in it. She loves to plant things, she loves to pick things, she loves to help maintain.
She has a special pair of boots dedicated for her garden work. She’s very inquisitive about, “How do the plants eat?” “Is the water their food?” “Why are there so many bugs up here?” “Why is a tomato red?” It’s really cute, but really exhausting. Her brain DOES NOT STOP. Everything is WHY, WHY, WHY?
Scott and I both get frustrated with the 20 questions and we eventually have to look at her and say, “Raelynn, this is the answer, no more questions.” And her normally response is, “But MOMMY, what about this?!” It’s just never ending.
Raelynn’s worries have also increased.
She just worries about stuff that a typical 4-year-old should not worry about. Every time we open the door to go outside and the dogs are around she freaks out. She is terrified the dogs are going to run out the door.
She is very overprotective of Briar. If they are playing outside and she needs to go to the restroom, she basically demands that I watch Briar while she is gone. OKAY. Who is really the mom here? She tries to be mom all the time.
God, she is absolutely me.
I told Scott we really have to watch what we say around her and also pay attention to what is on the TV. She picks up everything. I remember seeing a couple of things that were on TV when I was little and they still resonate today and directly relate to some of my worries/anxiety that have developed over the years.
She is a growing, thriving almost 4-year-old.
And then there’s Briar. Oh my lord.
Briar is full of spit and vinegar.
She has changed dramatically over the past 3 months. Just within the past couple of weeks, she is starting to talk more. A couple of words that have been added to her vocabulary are “Please” aka “PEAS”, “Thank you”, “Outside”, and finally starting to piece some words together like “Hi Dada” or “Hi Momma”.
She is very independent. Much, much different than Raelynn. Still to this day, Raelynn wants an adult to be with her on the floor playing. Briar on the other hand has no problem playing by herself in the living room or even in her own room. They play together very well, but as you would expect, they have their typical sister moments where they hit or push one another.
Also to follow up, prune juice did in fact happen to be our savior for Briar’s constipation issues. She finally grew to like it and we give it to her every day to keep her regular. We do the exact same thing with Raelynn. Wanna guess how much prune juice we go through in a week?! LOL
With both girls, we have actually been playing around with the schedules for a couple of different reasons.
Anyone that knows me, knows this is a huge anxiety trigger for me.
With Raelynn, she has been struggling in the morning to get out of bed. She would throw tantrums in the morning when she had to get up. It was exhausting. Since I would not be there in the mornings to help Scott anymore because of my new gym schedule, we knew we had to do something.
I ended up talking to the therapist about it to get her thoughts on it. Raelynn was going to bed at 8:30 and getting up at around 6:30 to go to daycare. That’s 10 hours of sleep. I thought it was enough.
The therapist explained that some kids legitimately require more sleep so maybe her bedtime needs to be pushed back. We decided we would do it in 30 minute increments and see what worked. We pushed her bedtime back to 8:00 p.m., and that was all we had to do. She is extremely better in the morning now. I can’t believe just 30 minutes would do this, but it makes all the difference in the world.
With Briar, she normally goes to bed at 7:30 and wake up the same time Raelynn does, 6:30. Lately, she is just not wanting to go to bed. She stands up in her bed and screams at the top of her lungs until she wears herself out and then goes to sleep for the night. Scott and I just recently talked about moving her bedtime up to 8:00 p.m. along with Raelynn and seeing if that helps. Briar ALWAYS wakes up happy. Literally ALWAYS.
While this isn’t a huge schedule shake up, it is one to say the least. But I’m not anxious or overwhelmed about it. I am just glad Raelynn’s is working for the moment and I hope Briar’s does too.
