Potty Training Tessa

*WARNING: There is a lot of talk about poop because that was Tessa's biggest struggle.*

PHASE 1

On January 2nd, Tessa woke up and decided she wanted to wear underwear like Cooper. I jumped on the chance (since I felt like she has been ready for almost a year already but she is so stubborn I had to wait until it was her idea). She hasn't looked back since! She has had a few accidents but for the most part has been a champ at peeing in the toilet. At nap time and night she wears a diaper/pull-up because she still hasn't mastered that, but during the day she is in underwear. She can't seem to figure out how to poop in the toilet, however. She does recognize when she needs to go, but it just doesn't seem to work when she sits on the toilet. (Her poop comes up with all sorts of excuses. Example: Tessa told me- My poop is not coming out. It is saying "I need to dry my hands first and then I will come out.") She has to get into a specific position in order to poop and it is hard to mimic on the toilet. I think it is because her poo is so dense. (TMI? perhaps...) So we are trying to soften it by giving her apple juice and more fruit. I will talk to her doctor about it at her 3 year well check in March.

PHASE 2

Once Tessa mastered peeing in the toilet she didn't look back. But because she would still poop her pants we decided to put her in pull ups for a while. At her three year wellness check I brought up the fact that she couldn't poop in the toilet but she doesn't seem scared to, just that she couldn't get it to come out. She tends to have really dense poops and I think it made it hard for her to get it out while sitting on the toilet. Her poop also had a lot of excuses as to why it wouldn't come out. Some of the ones I wrote down are:

- Her pee doesn't want to share the toilet with her poop.

- Her poop is dancing. When it is done, it will come out.

- Her poop needs to dry its hands first, then it will come out.

-Her poop is sleeping.

The doctor suggested giving her Miralax for a while to soften her poop and hopefully she will get the hang of it. We tried that and it worked! Her goal was to get a snake poop like Bennett. For the first little bit she was able to get tiny poops out but nothing big. To encourage her we told her that she would get an M&M for every little poop and when she was able to get a snake poop Jason would take her to the store for a big treat. She received several M&Ms over the course of a few days then all of a sudden she called me into the bathroom excitedly and pointed down. She had FILLED the toilet with poop! I was so impressed. Since the Miralax had softened her poop she wasn't able to accomplish a snake but she declared her pile of poo was "flower poop". Whatever, we will take it. Haha. Since it was a Sunday that she finally was able to poop Jason took her to the store the next day. She chose Swedish Fish. When she got home she promptly passed one fish out for everyone. She is so sweet.

After that first big poop something clicked in her brain and she has been able to poop in the toilet ever since. We have switched her to underwear again unless we are going somewhere where she could get distracted and forget to go or if there is not a toilet nearby. She also still wears a pull up to bed at night. But during her naps and all day she stays dry wearing underwear. Yay, Tessa! Even though she still wakes up with a saturated pull-up every morning I would still consider her officially potty trained. We will just wait for her body to mature enough to learn to not pee in her sleep. :) 

Nolen Park Easter Egg Hunt 2018

Eagle Mountain's annual Easter Egg Hunt was this past Saturday. The kids were super excited for it and it's nice they are all old enough to understand what is going on. Plus this is the last year they are all in the same age bracket. Next year they will have to collect eggs on separate fields.

Jason prepping the kids with the best strategy.

Anxiously waiting for the signal to start.

(Cooper middle, Bennett right)

It's go time!

We were lucky enough to get three eggs with prize papers in them so each of the kids received a prize. When they handed us a toothbrush I was very grateful it was a bright pink one. I think if one of the boys received a toy and the other one received a toothbrush there would have been a lot of tears. Luckily Tessa was STOKED about her toothbrush while the boys happily played with their new toys. #blessings

Playing Outside

The weather has been really fickle this year. We had an unseasonably warm winter and now that it is supposed to be spring, it can't seem to make up it's mind between snow and warm weather. So when it was nice weather for a few days in a row the kids took advantage of it.

Tessa found that trying to pull both boys around in the grass proved difficult.

So they took turns being pulled around.

(Bennett in the wagon, Cooper pushing)

After tiring of giving each other rides, they all headed to the sandbox.

Cooper

Bennett

Tessa found some buried treasure that I didn't even realize was missing. I am guessing it has been in there most of the winter.

The next day at preschool the boys learned about kites so naturally when Dad got home they wanted to go fly one. It was too gusty for the kite to stay in the air for long but they all still had fun chasing the tail around the yard.

Bath Pictures

My kids love bath time. 

Now that we have color drops to put in the bath, they race to the bathtub so they can be the first in and choose which color the bath will be.

I thought it would be fun to get pictures of each of them in a bath of their favorite color.

Cooper

Bennett

Tessa

Tessa's 3rd Birthday

Tessa is three!! She has been SO EXCITED for her birthday that for about a month she has been telling people her birthday is coming up. Whenever I ask her what she wants for her birthday all she says is a pink cupcake. I can handle that.

The day finally arrived and she was so excited that she came rushing into my room to wake me up. "Mom! It's my birthday! Get up, get up! Dad is already up!"

Everyone got a party hat and the boys wore theirs nearly the whole day.

Bennett

Cooper

Tessa insisted on opening presents before Daddy had to leave for work so that was the first thing we did.

Her favorite gift [by far!] was a Elsa doll from Grandma Sharp. She now sleeps with her and Rapunzel every night. She lovingly calls them "my girls". She loves that Elsa matches her favorite jammies. :) 

She also received a couple new outfits.

Once the presents were opened we moved on to breakfast. Tessa loves pancakes and Aunt Sarah suggested we add sprinkles and food coloring to make them extra fun.

Tessa was very pleased.

The boys had fun playing with all the balloons.

Bennett proudly showing how he squeezed the balloon until it looked like a light bulb.

Some of the decorations.

Once everyone was ready for the day I let Tessa choose where she wanted to go. She chose the Dinosaur Museum.

Bennett in blue hoodie, Cooper in stripes

A good portion of the time we spent in this room Cooper could be found staring at this fun Kinect structure.

Tessa loved pushing the buttons and watching the movies.

Tessa and Bennett rearranging dino bones.

After lunch and naps Tessa helped me make her pink cupcakes.

She chose sweet and sour meatballs for dinner and of course we had pink cupcakes for dessert.

After dinner we had ice cream and pop corn while we watched Coco downstairs. We rarely rent movies for the kids (who needs to when we have Netflix and Hulu??) so they were ecstatic that we got one that they could watch too. Before even watching it they declared it their favorite movie. Haha.

Bennett and Tessa

They were quite enthralled the whole movie.

Somehow by the end of the movie, everyone ended up on my tiny couch.

I love that they love to snuggle with me. :)

(Jason had turned on the light for a better picture and it was too bright for Tessa.)

A few days later Tessa received a birthday card from G&G Williams in the mail.

She was quite excited about her "three monies".

I think it was a good birthday and she has officially become a "threenager". (She is definitely my most dramatic so this is going to be a fun year....)