The Journey of Parenthood…

Tess Summary of Month 17

This post covers Tess’s 17th month of life from Nov 30-Dec 30th! She was 16 months old during this month 🙂

summary of 16 months old

Eating: Tess out eats Britt at every meal. She’s def in the pickier toddler phase and is LOVING some carbs right now. ALL of my kids did this.

I used baby food with Kye and did Baby Led Weaning with both of the girls. I honestly don’t think methods matter…I think our taste in foods is hereditary!

I LOVE me some carbs and peanut butter goes great on anything and all my kids are the same exact way.

We continue to expose them to variety of foods but it is kinda neat to see their preferences change as they get older. If it was my first kid, it’d stress me out haha Advantage of third kid? I now sit back and find it interesting how she has favorite foods 🙂 

Tess is LOVING using utensils. I clearly should have started using them with her sooner b/c girl picked em up and used them appropriately from the first time we gave them to her 🙂

I STILL have a decent bit of breastmilk in my deep freezer! Tess gets 3-5 oz a day. I run it under hot water while I make breakfast then pour it in her sippy mixed with her whole milk.

I don’t think she loves the taste of it as she tends to drink more milk at dinner time when the breastmilk portion is gone!

I’m pretty ready to get rid of it all as I’m hoping it’ll help her poop get more solid. But I know it’s liquid gold and is giving her those great antibodies to fight sickness which is a blessing with two older siblings in school and during cold season!

This really has NOTHING to do with Tess eating but is related to breastfeeding and I feel like I should mention it. It’s a TOTAL TMI so you have been warned.

But I get my period pretty quickly after giving birth, even with nursing. Ugh so annoying. This time around though my cycle has been INSANE and CRAZY. It makes me wonder a lot about my hormonal changes.

Maybe it’s why I had the struggle with PPD? When I weaned Tess my cycle got WAY CRAZY. Like I’d be super late or it’d come super early and then it’d last forever.

I had some pain and some other concerns and ended up going to my OB and even getting an internal ultrasound to check things out.

We discussed options and decided to wait it out a bit. Since I had JUST weaned her the thought was that maybe i just had a “build up” due to nursing for so long. Which makes a TON of sense right!!?

Anyways it was all pretty scary for me but seems to be working itself out now that I’ve been done nursing for awhile.

I keep track of my cycle on Pink Pad. It’s a GREAT tool for TTC and the longer you track everything, the more accurate it becomes.

So I always start tracking my junk as soon as it starts back after birth. I thought this was HILARIOUS. My cycle was intense in Dec and it said I had 1844 days left bahahaha 

While I’m not in any hurry to move Tess to a booster seat, she did SO WELL in Britt’s class for Britt’s birthday celebration!

She sat in a little chair with the big kids and ate off her plate and it was precious and one of those moments where I looked and her and realized she’s growing up!

Schedule:

6:45-7:00: Up for day, breakfast

9:00-11:00: Morning Nap (YES! I need to drop it…still holding onto it though ha!)

12:00ish: Lunch

1:00-3:00: Nap

3:00: No more snack!

5:30: Dinner

6:00: Bath

6:45: Story and Prayers

7:00: Bed for night

Potty: So this month I realized Britt was already hardcore potty training at 16 months old. I hadn’t even really been putting Tess on the potty AT ALL at that point!

We take her to the potty before bath each night but that’s really it! I read over my potty training posts with Britt and decided to just sit Tess on the potty randomly and see what happened. Um. She went tee tee twice in a couple hour period! I was NOT prepared for that to happen!

Like with all my kids, I jumped on it. If you want to train your kids to use the potty young…then you can’t miss the window of opportunity! I pulled out all my potty training stuff and took Tess to Target to get some big girl panties. 

Third kid to rock the Cars pulls ups! Still the same box I had from Kye!

Clearly thrilled about the panties haha

We did the panties thing for a few days. Maybe a week? I took extensive notes, of course, which I will make into a full post in the future.

When Kye was training he’d go tee tee every single time I took him to the potty. So he understood the connection of releasing the tee tee into the potty but didn’t fully grasp the goal of keeping his underwear dry as he couldn’t hold it for very long. With Britt she held it and would never go on the potty.

So she understood the goal of not getting her panties wet but didn’t know how to release it. With Tess she neither was holding it for long periods nor was she releasing it into the potty. I could have stuck with it.

And the hardcore side of me felt like I should stick with it. BUT it was early December. It was Christmas time. And my goal this year was to have THE BEST CHRISTMAS EVER. And I couldn’t handle keeping all my personal emotions in check while also dealing with potty training struggles.

So. 

I decided to stop using panties BUT to continue to use pull ups during awake times. I started taking her potty at regular times and talking up the potty etc but just not commenting when she’d go in the pull up (which I only ever referred to as a diaper).

I will be writing a full post on this in the future but this allowed for me to REALLY enjoy the holidays and was a VERY relaxed approach to early potty training and: IT WORKED OUT BEAUTIFULLY (spoiler alert but when I re-introduced panties in early Feb she took to them instantly!)

Potty multitasking 🙂

This month Tess got to spend some quality time with several people! She stayed with Big Papa and G-Mama while Zach and I were in Savannah! Big Papa scores points with the babies via the golf cart 🙂

She also got to spend time in bible class with her bff cousin Carter!

Tess LOVED visiting Britt’s class to celebrate Britt’s birthday! She was the star of the show for sure. All the little kids LOVED her and didn’t mind when she totally interrupted their story time 🙂

While Zach and I took the big kids to see The Good Dinosaur Jolee came and babysat Tess. Tess does NOT do well with “new” people.

And by new I mean like anyone that she doesn’t see on a daily basis.

We timed it out so Tess would wake up from her nap with Jolee there rather than us leaving and Jolee having to put her down for nap. She was super upset but got used to Jolee pretty quickly! I LOVE the pic Jolee snapped of her too 🙂

Tess is my little helper! When I run errands with all the kids I feel like people just look at me and think “whew she’s a hot mess” but when I just have Tess people look at me like “aw a first time mom!”

I LOVE hearing all the compliments about her and I love that feeling of people thinking I’m young haha Hearing the advice people give is super fun too 😉 

Tess had her booster flu shot this month. That’s THREE sets of shots that I’ve handled SOLO with her. Um. SUPER MOM right HERE people!!!

I freaking loathe needles but I man up when it’s for my kids 🙂 She did really great with the flu booster surprisingly! 

It’s super exciting that Tess is showing more of an interest in coloring! It makes dining out WAY easier b/c it’s simple entertainment!

And it’s important to me that my kids learn at a young age to be able to sit and focus on one task…coloring is so great for that!

A few months ago I was mildly heartbroken that Kye said he was ready to pack up his Toy Story friends. They have been part of his life for SO LONG and have always sat on a shelf right by his bed.

I didn’t have the heart to pack them away so I put them in the playroom and was SO HAPPY when Tess found Woody and instantly bonded with him. He’s her fav and it makes my sentimental self overjoyed 🙂

She may like Woody like her brother did but this girl is ALL GIRL like her sister!

It cracks me UP how she runs around picking up random dress up items of Britt’s and puts them on. Doesn’t she look SO PROUD (and adorable of course!)?

Tess is also a lot more interested in “reading” and will pick up any sort of reading material and lay down to study it 🙂

More About Tess:

  • During her naps she will lay there and make this gargling sound over and over
  • She obeys decently well. She understands when we tell her to do something
  • She loves balloons and will kick it while walking
  • She really draws people to her! She has such an infectious smile and creates smiles all around her. We met an older man at Hobby Lobby who kept coming up to see her and he ended up talking to me about his daughter and how their Christmas would be very difficult as she had just given birth to a baby who was stillborn. I was thankful for the opportunity to pray for this family and that wouldn’t have happened without sweet Tess bringing that man some joy during a difficult time
  • She doesn’t use language a lot. She’s moaning and whining a good bit but we are working on being more consistent with her signs, especially “all done” with sitting on the potty
  • I skip her morning nap as needed and she does FINE without it. I know she’s probably ready to drop it but I’m holding onto it as it’s SO NICE having that time in the mornings! Especially with the kids home from school over break it’s nice to have a block of time to spend with them where we don’t have to worry about watching her!
  • She is cutting her canines…all at the same time which is MISERABLE
  • Her skin is sometimes dry or spotty so I make sure to use lotion
  • She likes to line up all of her toys in the bathtub along the edge just like Britt
  • She does WAY better for Bible Class if Zach is the one to take her! If I take her she bawls and I end up having to stay with her the whole time but if Zach takes her she happily waves “bye bye” to him like it’s no big thing!
  • She was eating snack and put down her cheese stick and leaned forward and asked me for a kiss!
  • Her vocabulary really exploded this month. When we were at Aunt Debby’s Christmas Party she said Carter a ton and kinda said G-Mama and the next morning she said both Britt Britt and Kye! And on Christmas day she said Papa for Big Papa!
  • In the tub one night she blew me a kiss and then wrapped herself in a hug
  • She says “mmmmm” when giving a kiss
  • Tess LOVES opening presents! It made Christmas SO FUN!
  • She knows several body parts and will point to eyes (and say eyes) and will also point to nose and ears
  • She’s OBSESSED with her daddy right now. She’s constantly saying Dada and running to him. She heard the garage door and immediately stopped playing and ran to the back door to greet him. She’s really our first kid to be like that and it makes him SO HAPPY 🙂 

Videos:

I took a couple pics of Tess solo in my dress as a toddler! You can see the pics of her and Britt together here as well as pics of her wearing the same dress last year here!

Sibling Comparisons: You can see Britt’s summary of month 17 here. I LOVE how they are starting to catch up to clothes sizes! Tess is wearing a shirt in this post that Britt is wearing the same month in hers 🙂 I also love how much they have in common with their accessories and phones and just the cuteness of my girls! Gah Britt was such a cutie at this age and it’s such a fun stage for sure! You can see Kye’s 17th month summary here! Omg his bottom teeth look EXACTLY like Tess’s. That is crazy to me! Hers get stuff in them very easily too! I like the squirt bottle activity I did with him, I’m so thankful for the blog b/c “first time mom” Emily was on the ball with stuff that “third time mom” Emily needs reminding of haha

Emily Parker
Latest posts by Emily Parker (see all)

You may also enjoy:

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *