Tess Summary of Month 20

This is a summary of Tess’s 20th month of life (Feb 29th – March 31st) she was 19 months old during this month:

Eating: 

Tess LOVES to grub as long as it’s things SHE likes.

Def hit the toddler picky eating stage of the game with her.

The benefit of a third kid is I don’t stress over it like I’m sure I did with the other two.

Sometimes she pigs out, sometimes she barely eats but I know it’s just a cycle toddlers go through and it evens out! Plus her chubby belly keeps me reminded that she’s plenty healthy 😉

Excited for a pancake from Daddy!

Grins for Mac and Cheese!

Doing so awesome with utensils, straw cups and bowls/plates!

Not always happy 😉

Silly blueberry face!

Sleep: 

She continues to be a low sleep needs kid but she no longer cries AT ALL in her bed.

She LOVES her bed! I love this stage of the game b/c I feel like the hard work has really, really paid off.

Having a child who loves her bed is such a blessing! When I walk in to get her she’s ALWAYS awake and pretty much ALWAYS standing up! 

She is still adjusting to the one nap a day thing and we struggled a bit at the beginning with falling asleep in the car.

She finally got better about that and then we started swim lessons.

I gave up even worrying about it b/c there was NOTHING I could do to keep her awake after swim! She worked hard, was worn out, and just took that little cat nap in the car!

Sometimes she tricked me too 😉

Schedule:

6:45-7:15: Up for day, breakfast

9:30 ish: independent playtime

10:30ish: movie time

11:40: get britt from school

12:30: lunch

1-4: nap

5:30: dinner

6:15: Bath

7:00 bed for night

Potty: 

I know I haven’t done a full “potty post” yet about Tess.

Which isn’t like me at all butttt it’s for a good reason.

She was 100% day trained in Feb.

I had worried about training her before swim lessons b/c I worried it’d be a struggle.

And I was right. With swim she swallowed a lot of water and it just makes it impossible to control.

Accidents started happening.

On top of swim she also had a month filled with sickness (more to come) which messed things up.

We’re now “real life time” at the end of May and she’s doing AWESOME except in the car.

For some reason even if she goes potty right before we leave the house…she’ll often have accidents in the car.

Any suggestions? I just don’t like to write a post offering up advice about potty training when she’s not 100% there yet! 

To try to help with the car accidents I started carrying a portable potty in the car with me! She loves it but it’s not really helping all that much!

The first health issue with Tess this month was constipation. It was ROUGH.

I wrote about my tips here but it was not easy to deal with by any means.

And I wrote that post b/c I struggled to find a lot of good tips to help with the issue! 

We finally got the poop flowing decently and at swim one day I noticed Tess felt warm. I figured it was just teething and looked in her mouth and was really concerned about what I saw!

She was acting PITIFUL. Barely eating, crying in pain when drinking.

Her gums were so swollen they were rising up covering parts of her teeth.

My first thought was overcrowdedness.

Like maybe her having teeth so close together was an issue and when the new teeth were trying to come in they were causing problems?

Sore on her tongue and swollen gums

The roof of her mouth was strange looking too…like the piece in the center was very white and swollen

Both upper and lower gums were swollen

You can see how the gum was rising up over the teeth

Even her lips were swollen

I gave it a bit of time but was concerned that it was either a teething issue or that she had some sort of incident that caused damage that I wasn’t aware of happening.

Like maybe she had fallen and hurt herself or something.

She continued to just not be herself and I decided she needed to be seen but I wasn’t sure if I should take her to her dr or to a dentist!

I decided to do the walk-in clinic (this time requesting someone since I had a bad experience last time with a newer person there) and had an appointment at the dentist for right after.

Her temp kept spiking up and then going back down and I just had no clue what was going on! I’m pretty cool, calm and collected but I was nervous!

Of course we get to the walk-in clinic and she was happy as could be and playing and running around!

Crying from trying to drink 🙁

The PA we saw is one of my favs…I trust him completely and he told me off the bat that he thought she had gingivitis. SO RANDOM.

But he said infections/viruses/bacteria can get into the gums and cause it.

She had sores ALL over her tongue, including ones I couldn’t even see before when I was looking.  

He said issues with the gums are something you don’t wanna mess around with so he prescribed her antibiotics to take.

He said to let her eat anything she was able to eat, even just ice cream.

He said to sprinkle salt on her food as salt helps to fight junk off too.

He said motrin would help as well and that she couldn’t go to swim for an entire week and to also stop brushing her teeth at all until it cleared up.

They did a strep test which shocked us both by coming back positive. He thinks the strep went into her gums and caused all the issues. SO pitiful!!! 

He also was concerned about her constipation and said she should be pooping every 4 days or we need to do the pedialax.

He said not pooping can cause a lot of mouth issues b/c the poop will be reabsorbed by the body. YUCK.

He also said to start doing a daily probiotic with her to help with tummy issues and to help with fighting off crud. 

Thankfully none of the other kids caught the strep but it was SO sad seeing her hurting so badly!!!

Spoiled with snuggles

Gums stayed red for almost 2 weeks

Pedialite popsicles are the jam!

Tess just doesn’t have the best luck…poor thing broke out in a rash towards the end of the medicine. I sent pics to Robyn and she thought it was probably due to the amoxicillin.

Literally not even a couple weeks after the mouth issues Tess woke up in the night puking.

I talked about it more in the Easter post but that stomach virus started with her and made it’s rounds to everyone in our family except me!

I had already felt SO AWFUL for her dealing with the mouth issues but having her in my arms puking like that was beyond heartbreaking. Poor thing had a ROUGH month!

She puked every 20-30 min from 10:20 – 1:20.

Even with the rough, rough month Tess was still such a joy and still had FUN! She LOVES to play play play! 

BeatBo is her FAV for sure! SO much dancing and laughing!

She also really loves Woody, which makes my heart so happy!

And she’s such a good babysitter for Britt’s baby while Britt is at school!

talking on her waffle phone 😉

She is also starting to really enjoy playing outside and can go up into the playground like a pro!

Mini Accessory Queen

Britt’s room is her favorite place 😉

We have a good 20-30 min between swim and picking up Britt so we always run a quick errand. She’s a great shopping partner (especially with her reward sucker from swim to keep her occupied haha!)

I missed the Kids Sale due to the Donald Trump visit so Tess had to go with me to shop the deals 🙂

Tess loves to copy whatever Britt does (BIG responsibility on Britt’s shoulders!!!) They are so cute in the tub together blowing bubbles!

Tess has started to REALLY improve with Bible class!

We’ve found if Zach is the one who takes her and drops her off that it works best as she’s used to seeing him leave her the most often.

If I have to take her it’s still a bit of a struggle, but once she’s there she really enjoys it! 

Little miss independent can climb up the ladder in the playroom..check out that killer “I’m so proud of myself” smile!

Something I’m having to really work on with her is letting her walk.

I’m SO used to carrying her everywhere that it’s just not natural for me to have her walk around.

It’s important for her to learn how to walk near me, hold my hand etc and I’m def working on it with her! Plus it’s more fun hearing all the “she’s SO cute!” comments when she’s walking around 😉

More About Tess:

• She has a good bit of leg hair already…very interested to see what they end up wanting to do about her early development at her 2 year visit!
• She says “UGH OH” constantly…and when she goes potty in her panties
• She is starting to communicate with me when she needs to go potty and can hold it pretty well

• She can say “please” and “yes” but “no” is her fav word
• She didn’t like prune juice or apple juice
• She LOVES water

• She’s VERY jealous. On Wed night I had to stay with her in Bible Class one night and a little boy was in the class who was upset so I kept holding him to try to help him calm down and she did nooooot like it. I ended up with her in my lap and him right there beside her!
• She started asking to go potty before bed by saying “ugh oh, ugh oh” when I laid her down

• She is also upset when I put her to bed b/c she’s realized we do fun things without her!
• ]I relocated a lot of our favorite family stories this month into the living room. We always read in Tess’s room so a lot of our favorites aren’t in her room! Tess loves the new spot in the living room and is always getting them out to read them

• She tilts her head to the side and does this adorable smile whenever she does something wrong or we tell her “no ma’am”
• She struggles with coming when called and stopping when told to stop
• She says “mmmmmah!” and loves to give night night kisses to everyone
• Her vocab really exploded this month with TONS of words!

Videos:

• Saying “Bye!”
• Dancing to BeatBo
• Being silly at the dr
• Saying “Wall – E”

• Saying “outside, ugh oh, no, me, please” etc
• Saying SUCH good prayers!
• Blowing bubbles in tub

In a tough month I enjoyed extra cuddles and am thankful to put sickness issues in the past! I love my precious girl!

Sibling Comparisons: 

You can see Britt’s 20th month here and Kye’s here!

I think Britt has changed in so many ways since this age, but in several of the pics from this month  you can see how she looks similar to 4 year old Britt.

I feel like this phase of life has passed SO QUICKLY!!!  

It’s also CRAZY to me how I kept Kye turned backwards longer than most and he still went forward facing at 19 months.

Britt was almost 4 years old before we turned her forward and Tess will def be the same!

While I miss Kye at this age, I don’t miss that time in our lives. Building a house, living with my mom, and Zach needing back surgery was NOT the most fun time ever haha!