The Journey of Parenthood…

Tess Summary of Month 10

This post is a summary of Tess’s 10th month of life (so she was 9 months old at this time). Her 10th month was from May 1st – May 30th. 

Nursing: Pretty much all babies I’ve known personally start getting more antsy with nursing at 9 months. They want to check out the world around them and start losing interest in the whole nursing thing. I remember with Britt having to physically push her head into my breast to get her to drink and I’d always have to nurse her sitting up to help limit distractions. Tess though? Zero percent distracted. Child just LOVES to nurse in a way that I’ve never personally experienced. She loooooves it. And she still even falls asleep nursing during her bedtime nursing session. It’s precious and it makes me SO thankful that I never gave up with breastfeeding. It’s always been a struggle for me in the early days but man it’s so worth it. I’m truly dreading weaning her!

This month Zach and I went to Hilton Head. Leading up for the trip I went to pump one night because Zach had given Tess a bottle so I could go out with friends. I had JUST bought a BRAND NEW Medela Freestyle Breast Pump
back in December. When I went to use it, it didn’t work. It kept saying it needed to have the battery charged but then it wouldn’t work if I plugged it in to charge it either. I opened it up and was shocked to see that the battery chamber was all corroded. Not cool!!! I called Medela and was blown away by their costumer service. They shipped me a brand new pump (the entire set!) for FREE and sent it overnight shipping. How amazing is that? No questions asked or anything. Didn’t even ask to see the photos I’d taken! I was already a fan of Medela but now I’m a super fan 😉

My favorite time with Tess continues to be the time when she’s finished nursing. Not only does she love to nurse, but she also loves to snuggle after. I’m talking she’ll stay in my lap for a good 20 minutes, easy. I know these days are numbered so I’m soaking them up as long as possible!

Sleep: At the beginning of the month she was still using the HALO SleepSack
to sleep but on May 26th I did wean her from it. It was a few rough naps but then she adjusted. It’s just so warm here now that I thought it was time! Tess loves to cuddle with her bunny friend while she sleeps and she always wakes up happy 🙂 She is waking early most moorings…like 6:15ish. But she will talk happily and usually fall back to sleep!

Craziest bed head for sure!

No more sleep sack!

Schedule: 

Tess’s schedule remains the same:

6:45-7:15: Get up then nurse

Solids

9:00-11:00: Nap

10:45-11:15: Get up then nurse

12:00ish: Solids

1:00-3:00: Nap

2:45-3:15: Get up then nurse

6:00: Solids for dinner with family

6:40: Bath

7:00: Nurse then straight to bed

Solids: Tess LOVES to GRUB! She eats and eats and just truly enjoys food. This month I got a little more lenient with things. I introduced peanut butter and gave her her first teething biscuit “cookie.” 

First peanut butter:

First “cookie”:

This is such a funny face she makes while eating!

This month we had bottle issues. Again. While I dread weaning her, and am in no hurry to do so, man it’ll make leaving her easier! Bottle junk is so stressful! On May 10th she didn’t drink much from her bottle at church. Then on the 14th she wouldn’t drink from the bottle at all for Mema when she kept her. That same night Zach did a bottle because I was going out with friends and she only drank 1 ounce. We tried everything and she refused to drink from either the bottle or the sippy. I tried to give her breastmilk from the sippy in hopes of just dropping the bottle all together, but she had zero interest in drinking it. If it ain’t from mama, she don’t want it! 

At the end of the month Zach and I went to Hilton Head. I was nervous about leaving her so we did the same plan we did with Hawaii. We took her to Mrs. Charlotte’s a day early to let her adjust before we left, and again like Hawaii, she did awesome! No issues, drank the bottle great. She still didn’t want it in a sippy but she took the bottle fine so I felt fine with that. I guess she does better if I’m not around at all and she’s not in our house. 

Here’s an idea of a typical plate I’d make her for a meal. This is bits of peanut butter on whole wheat bread, some shrimp, butter beans, broccoli, strawberry, pear slices and watermelon. She’ll eat all of this and still ask for more!

I’m starting to give her more of the foods we are eating rather than always making her separate stuff. She is a fan of lasagna haha!

This month Tess pulled to standing for the first time! It was on 5/14 and I happened to catch a picture of it. Of course she went right for the little decorative marbles I have sitting out so I had to get onto her…proof that we are in a whole new world now!

Tess is into everything and is all over the place. She has very little fear and isn’t super cautious. She LOVES Zeke, our cat. The thing with cats is that they aren’t very predictable. I knew at some point she was going to get scratched or bit and it happened this month. Nice red scratch on her arm. She didn’t cry much and it faded in a couple days. She also bumps her head a good bit and has some bruising! I promise we watch her all the time and are gentle with her…but being fearless means some bumps will happen! She likes to put her head between her legs and will literally bang her head on the floor. Crazy!

See the bruise?

Her favorite game…stand on all fours and put her head between her legs! This is where the head bruise came from!

I remember feeling like this was a really fun age with both of my other children. It’s an age where they start to have personalities and can really play and have FUN. For all three of my kids I devote their bottom dresser drawer to toys. I rig it up so it can’t hurt their fingers (link attached to a larger toy hanging from the side of the drawer does the trick) and then when we play in their rooms they can pick toys and play with them as well as easily clean them up. I love watching Tess be such a “big kid”

Another “big kid” moment: enjoying her Cozy Coupe
!

Tess is still a champ at independent playtime! 30 min a couple times a day with no issues 🙂

This month Tess was FOR SURE teething. On the 20th she refused to nurse on the second side when I fed her. Which is not like her AT ALL. Then she didn’t eat hardly any solids. At 3 she nursed fine again and I saw her 7th tooth poking through! 

Common teething face

MISERABLE baby!

The Razbaby RaZ-berry Teether
is still my personal favorite teething toy!

This month we had Tess’s 9 month pics and I felt like maybe it was time to switch up the bows. I know with Britt I didn’t have much hair knowledge and while I’m still not a great “hair mom,” I’ve improved some over the years 😉 Tess has SO MUCH hair that her tiny baby bows were just getting lost in it all! I’d like to have some 2-3 inch bows for her but don’t want to spend the money so she’ll just share Britt’s 4 inch ones 🙂 I’m not into big bows but man she can rock it! I did end up finding a discount deal for 49 3 inch pinwheel bows for like $25 so I scooped that up! 

She loves to look at her reflection in the dishwasher 🙂 She loves to kiss it as well!

Tess is getting more and more into her siblings. She LOVES to be wherever they are and playing with whatever they are playing with. She laughs and laughs at them and is especially starting to like Britt more! They both do such a good job of being gentle with her and being patient with her. Although I get asked a lot to take her away 😉 They call her “Baby Tod” all the time. Kye said they call her that because “tod” is short for toddler and she’s a toddler because she’s so little. Of course Britt somehow changed it to “Baby Shoff” so now Tess has a few random nicknames 🙂 

Baby Tod doesn’t mind causing some disruption to the big kids toys!

Attempting to read a story to all three kids together!

More About Tess:

  • She whispers all the time
  • She crawls with her back legs straight like she’s walking
  • Loves when I play “clap clap your hands” with her in my lap
  • Tess is SO quiet! And SO sneaky! We reallllly have to keep a constant eye on her!
  • When she drinks her water sippy she will spit out the water and thinks it’s hilarious
  • Her main reason for spankings is because she always crawls over to the entertainment center and messes with the DVR/DVDs
  • She loves the vacuum. SO strange that she will crawl towards it rather than be afraid of it like babies usually are. I mean Britt still freaks!
  • When she’s in my lap in the mornings she’s always looking upstairs waiting to see Kye come down. She has this HUGE smile that she has just for him!
  • She doesn’t really do the signs for “more” and “all done.” I mean let’s be real…third kid and meal times are a tad crazy to be working on sign language skills 🙂 She does say “mmmmmm” for more and “dnnnnnn” for done 🙂
  • On 5/20 she got in the pool float for the first time and she was so funny! Right away she put her face in the water and started blowing bubbles! She’s a natural!
  • I use Claritin when she has a stuffy nose. I’ve never had a baby that needed it before so I think she’ll be my allergy child
  • When Zach and I got back from Hilton Head she was SO precious and kept kissing me over and over and over
  • Another big area of spankings for Tess is the cat’s water bowl in the kitchen. 
  • I always have to keep Tess’s hair in a pony because it’s in her face SO BAD!
  • Pet peeve of mine is when kids/babies grind their teeth. Ugh that sound! She’s in a grinding stage right now and it drives me crazy
  • Tess shakes her head no to be funny and silly
  • She’s SUPER fast with crawling!

Videos:

One of my favorite pics of her EVER!

Another all-time favorite pic of her!

People constantly say that Tess looks JUST like me. Y’all. I LOVE IT. Kye and Britt are both very blended between Zach and I in looks so we’ve always had people tell us different things when it comes to who they look like. But Tess? EVERYONE says she looks like me. I eat it up! It really makes me prayerful that our next baby will be a boy who looks just like Zach 🙂 I know Jordan loves how Carter looks just like him and I want that for Zach too! On that note though…Tess is in for some MEGA awkwardness if she keeps looking like her mama! YIKES:

Sibling Comparisons:  You can see Britt’s 10th month summary here and Kye’s here! I LOVE looking back at these posts and especially watching the videos. To me, Tess favors Kye a lot…that first picture of him looks so much like her! But I also see some pics in Britt’s summary that remind me of Tess as well. It’s so fun to be able to compare! It’s also always so cool to me to see that the kids are all doing pretty much the same things at the same time developmentally. Tess has the same amount of teeth as Britt and bruises on her head like her brother 😉

Emily Parker
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