My First Bit Of Advice As A Mother!

I just read something that really annoyed me. Someone on Yahoo Answers asked how long they should let their baby cry after they have put them down for sleep, wondering if one, two, or three hours was ok. There were 9 answers. 8 of them appeared to be from the same person who wrote answers like (I did not correct their spelling, grammar or punctuation purely for your enjoyment):

“Uh I'm all for self settling and letting baby cry for a few minutes but an hour? Give me a break. This has to be a bull**** post, no mother would let their child cry that long surely! If this is for real you really need to get him up and comfort him. If he cries too long he'll just get so worked up he'll never goto sleep.”

 “thats disgusting an hour?? i hope this is fake...i dont let my baby cry it out. i had him for a reason.”

And my favorite; “Shame on you for letting your helpless baby cry for over an HOUR!! Your sick and twisted. You shouldn't even let a baby cry for 1 minute!!”

The person who answered this post not only set out to make the curious parent feel like a monster, but has no clue how to raise a well adjusted, happy baby. “You shouldn't even let a baby cry for 1 minute!!”? Really? Is it even possible to pick your child up before they’ve cried for a whole minute every time? I’m pretty sure it’s not. A baby will not spontaneously combust if it cries for more than a minute. He will not grow up feeling neglected and unloved.

I am so happy for you that you have a child that must not cry very much, lady. That you must never have felt that deep frustration and anger I have felt after listening to my poor child scream for hours, trying everything when nothing worked. I am no expert, (I cannot stress this enough) but if this is the parenting style you choose to continue, your child will no doubt be an obnoxious spoiled brat. A well adjusted adult will be able to soothe himself after a disappointing day. He will understand that sometimes we don’t get our way and be able to deal with that. A child who is comforted for every little thing will not grow up to be a well adjusted adult and a parent who drops everything at the sound of a whimper will be stressed and tired.

Lilly had a lot of trouble sleeping for her first two and half months. She cried and cried all night long for several nights in a row. We changed her, fed her, checked to see if she was hot or cold or uncomfortable in any way, made sure she wasn’t sick.  We tried swaddling her (which she actually HATED) and changed her position in the crib. We rocked her, read to her and gave her several drops of Mylicon. Nothing worked. Eventually Andy and I had reached a level of frustration and anger no person should experience, but a level I am sure every parent reaches at some point. The doctor had told us not to let her cry for more than an hour at time. “But WHY?” we asked. We asked several parents and pediatricians and not one gave us an answer that was better than “You just shouldn’t!”

We decided that if they couldn’t give us a legitimate reason why we shouldn’t let her cry after we had tried everything else, we would let her cry it out. The next time we got to that point, that point where we could have screamed in poor little Lilly’s face, that point where instead of screaming in Lilly’s face we screamed at each other, slammed doors, and threw, with great force, any object that might have gotten in our way, that instead we would put Lilly in her crib, close our bedroom door, and let her cry it out. At this point it seemed absolutely necessary for all of our well beings that we just walk away from the baby in the crib. We aren’t bad people, we aren’t monsters, we love our little Lilly Belle with all our hearts, but several weeks straight of sleeping no more than an hour or two each night and working all day has a very scary effect on people. We weren’t ourselves.   

The first night we left Lilly to cry, she cried for at least two hours before she finally fell asleep. We were scared and nervous. The crying just didn’t seem to let up. Should we go to her? What should we do?  But we decided that we would just wait it out no matter how long she cried.

The second night she only cried for an hour. For a couple more nights after that she cried for an hour before falling asleep. Then, one magical night, she fell asleep after crying for only 20 minutes! I remember that feeling of relief and our celebratory high five. We fell asleep and the next morning we didn’t wake up until 7AM. We turned Lilly’s baby monitor all the way up and didn’t hear a peep. OH GOD! She must be dead we thought. We raced upstairs and I put my hand on her chest. “She’s still breathing” I whispered to Andy feeling a little confused. We very quickly and quietly tip toed out of her room and closed the door. We were in complete disbelief! She slept all night long! She didn’t cry once! Will she do it again? She did. Every night she cried for about 10 minutes and then fell right to sleep!

Lilly is now 19 months old and she likes to go to bed. She enjoys hugging her little blanket. We put a couple of books in there and she has a soother that lights up and projects pictures onto the ceiling, which she knows how to turn on herself. Sometimes we peek in on her and find her reading her books by the light of her soother. She knows when she is tired to put the books down and go to sleep (how she learned that part, I have no idea). Most nights we put her down and don’t hear a peep out of her. Sometimes she cries for a few minutes, but she knows how to soothe herself and how to entertain herself and these are invaluable skills for a one and half year old, or for any age for that matter. They have kept both Andy and I sane and happy people. Allowing her to "cry it out" was the best thing we ever did (other then have her in first place!)

Lilly knows we love her. We shower her with hugs and kisses and tell her we love her at least twelve times daily. She is happy and not the least bit neglected. I think we did the right thing. It was right for us. Not everyone can handle all that crying and screaming from their poor helpless infant. Many people have more patience than we did. Good for them. But I am here to tell you that if you are like me and like Andy and you can’t take it anymore, it is OK to let your child cry it out! They will not explode, or die, or grow up to feel neglected (at least not when they grow to 19 months, we have no experience past that time-yet). In the end you will be helping them learn to self soothe, an important life skill. 

Below: A few of Lilly's crying moments... and a sleeping one!

A St. Louis Adventure!

This past weekend was my first time exploring St. Louis. My sister came for a visit and her flight arrived in St. Louis late Friday night. We decided instead of driving all the way there and then turning around and driving all the way back and spending 4 hours in the car, that it would be fun to cash in Andy’s hotel rewards points and stay over for the weekend. We planned to fit a lot in just two days.

We left Columbia around 9:00, but first headed over to our friend Monica’s house for the 25^th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee cast Party. We could only stay about 15 minutes and then we hit the road.

This was Lilly’s first time staying in a hotel. She has trouble sleeping when she has to share the room. No let me rephrase, she refuses to fall asleep if others around her are still awake. So we decided the best thing to do would be to let her stay up an hour and half past her bed time and that we would ALL go to bed at 10PM. This way it would be dark and quiet so she could fall asleep. That was the plan.

By the time we got to the airport and got Ilyssa, it was already 11:30 and Lilly was fast asleep in her car seat. She was WIDE AWAKE when we got to the hotel at 12:00 AM. We got to our room and made it in about 3 feet before we noticed only one queen bed and a couch that didn’t open up. Andy went to complain to the front desk. When Andy told him there was only one bed, the man was like “WHAT!? Where could it have gone!?” He came to our room and proceeded to show us the door to the second bedroom. “Sir, you got the suite. It has two rooms.” Oops. That was embarrassing. After apologizing several times for making the guy come all the way to our room to help us find a giant queen sized bed we thought was missing, we set up Lilly’s pack and play and let her run around and get tired again.  

At about 1AM we were all ready for bed. We turned out the light and did our best to ignore Lilly’s whining, which thankfully lasted no more than two minutes before she fell asleep. Andy and I did a silent high five over this toddler bedtime victory, rolled over and promptly fell asleep.

Lilly didn’t wake up until 9:30 the next morning! We got our fabulous continental breakfast which included eggs, sausage, waffles, and yogurt among other things and headed out to the zoo! It was only 10:30 AM and was already HOT. The St. Louis Zoo is special to us because it is where Andy and I got married! After seeing, penguins, a cheetah, a bear, a tiger, pelicans, flamingoes, gorillas and  discovering Lilly is absolutely terrified of anything that is not human, we decided to get some lunch and head back to the hotel for naptime.

First we went to pick up the cake my sister ordered from the bakery that made our wedding cake. It was the same flavors as our wedding and cake tasted delicious!

After nap we headed to pride fest where we heard some great music, had some great drinks, and got like 12 bags of free potato chips! We let Lilly run around the park a little. She found these two guys sitting under a tree, ran over to them, and without hesitation just plopped down in the one guys lap. Luckily he found it just a funny and adorable as we did.

Next it was dinner time. We went to a place called Cheese-Ology where all they have is mac-n-cheese! They have tons of different flavors and everything we got was DELICIOUS! Lilly loved her dinner too and ate with a fork all by herself. She also colored. Directly on the table. So we had to wipe that off...  Thank God for Crayola washable crayons! Cheese-Ology was crowded, so we didn’t stay too long after we finished our meals.

The week before I searched the internet for something we could do on Saturday night that was kid friendly and would be open late so we could stick to our 10PM bed time without having a kid running around a hotel room for two hours first. I found the City Museum which was exactly what I was looking for! It is this amazing hands on museum with all kinds of things the whole family can enjoy and it is open until 1AM on Friday’s and Saturdays! There was a lot there that Lilly couldn’t do, but she had a blast playing in the toddler section, coloring on the giant blackboard wall with chalk, building with sponge blocks (and knocking said buildings over), and just seeing all the new and interesting things and watching the “big kids” play. As an adult, the City Museum was super fun! I might even like to try it without Lilly sometime.

We got back to the hotel at a good time and we all went to bed around 10:30. I had some trouble sleeping though. A storm came through and there were some really loud crashes of thunder. The loudest booming at 2:56 AM when I heard the hum of electricity die out and the hotel lost power. The storm settled down and I assumed the power would probably be back by the time we got up and I fell asleep. I woke up first, around 8:30 AM, and there was still no power. I went down to the front desk to check on the situation. They had no clue when the power would be back. There was no breakfast this morning, and the front desk attendant handed me a flashlight so I could use it to see in the bathroom. She assured me that the water was heated with gas so we could still shower.

The hot water was non existent. I braved the icy shower with a flashlight just barely providing enough light for me to determine which was the shampoo and which the conditioner. No sooner did I get dressed, but the power came back. Had I waited just 20 minutes I could have taken at least a warm shower!

We packed up the car and decided to skip the pride parade because of the heat (we didn’t want to sit in one place in the sun in that heat) and headed straight (no pun intended) to Six Flags!

Six Flags was fun. We did a couple of rides and purchased the $15 cup that gets you free refills for the day (which proved to be a very good purchase!). We decided pretty early on to walk back to the car, change into swim suits and hit up Hurricane Harbor. We spent most of the time playing in the giant kid’s area. It was so much fun! They had water pouring and spraying out of everywhere! Lilly had a blast! It felt soooo good to cool off! We spent about 3 hours there. By the time we finished it was 4PM and we headed back into six flags for a couple more rides and few last fill ups of that blasted $15 cup (we filled it up 12 times, so totally worth it). 

Lilly slept very well that night. All in in all it was great mini-vacation! Now here are some photos I took with my phone. I'll hopefully add some better ones, as both Andy and Ilyssa were snapping away with nice cameras all weekend.

Above and Below: Lilly watching the penguins from a safe distance so they wouldn't eat her alive.Or so she thought. 

Above: The Weener Mobile out and about in STL

Below: Tower Grove Park where Pridefest was held.

Above: Ilyssa and Andy at Cheese-Ology

Below: Our delicious Mac-N-Cheese meals!

 Below: Lilly enjoying the giant black board at the City Museum

I. Have. No. PATIENCE.

I am so excited for this weekend I can’t take this day any more. I. Just. Can’t. TAKE IT.

My sister is flying in and will be visiting for the week and we will be spending this first weekend in St. Louis. We have a lot planned. The zoo, eating a wedding cake, STL Pride Fest, A surprise dinner, surprise after dinner entertainment (the surprises are for Lilly and Andy), then Pride parade on Sunday, looking at the STL Arch from a park, followed by an afternoon/evening at Six Flags St. Louis! It’s going to be so much fun and we are going to be exhausted come Sunday night.

The weather is INCREDIBLE today. Let’s hope it lasts through the weekend.

This day is just dragging… and it’s only halfway over. And I’m hungry. Spend my lunch writing a blog post, or eat? Hmmm… How about both? Time for the second part. I’ll post pics of the glorious weekend after it ends. 

Below: This is my "I CAN'T WAIT FOR THIS DAY TO END" face

Number:12 Part II- OR Adventures In Painting With A Toddler

(Plate 2 of 8)

Over the weekend I painted the second plate in my series! I went to Hands On (my favorite ceramics place EVER) with my sister-in-law, Alyssa, and we took my daughter Lilly. Lilly just started walking a few weeks ago, so I let her hold my hand and walk around with me in the ceramics place while I chose a plate to paint. A woman there, who also brought her much older kids in to paint, saw Lilly and said to her in a baby talk kind of voice, “What was your mommy thinking bringing you here?” 

WHAT!? LADY I KNOW MY OWN KID. MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS! I just ignored her.

Let me explain. I have a weird 15 month old child. She is generally in a pretty good mood. Quiet when she is focused on something and easy to handle. She also sleeps 12 hours a night and takes not one, but TWO naps a day. I have been trying to get her down to one nap, but she simply can’t make it. So I use that time to do stuff around the house, or relax. It’s pretty nice… We know we are LUCKY. Most toddlers couldn’t handle a quiet place where you need to sit still for an hour, so I guess I can understand why that lady thought I was nuts. Even so, that was pretty rude for her to say. Also, Hands On Ceramics is very accommodating of any age.

So, anyway, I figured we could get started and if Lilly couldn’t handle it we would play while Alyssa finished up her picture frame (which turned out awesome by the way) and I would just come back some other time to finish. Lilly stood on the chair next to me, I took off her shirt so she wouldn’t get it dirty, and she helped me paint the underside of the plate. We also put her hand print on there! It's so cute!

I decided since Lilly was with me, to paint the Lilly plate. It doesn’t really look like her. I mean you can tell it’s supposed to be her, but it looks how I expected the Andy plate to turn out. Even so I love it! Can’t wait to see how it turns out after it’s fired in the kiln!

Lilly did a fabulous job. That dumb rude lady even complimented her behavior admitting that she had a child the same age at home that she would never bring to a place like that because he couldn’t sit still for 2 seconds. HAHAHA. My child is way more awesome than yours. HA.

I gave Lilly dry brushes with no paint so she could “help” me and that kept her occupied for about 30 minutes (an eternity in kid-time). I also gave her a coloring page and some crayons. I watched her very closely the entire time. Then I began painting the plate-Lilly’s eyes and took my attention away from her for about 1.5 minutes. In kid-time that’s like 45 minutes of amazing time for a kid to repaint your house or crash your car into a McDonalds. BIG MISTAKE. She stepped right off the edge of the chair and crashed right into a McDonalds. No, but she did fall onto the floor. She was totally fine, but cried for a very embarrassing 5 minutes while the rude lady glared at me probably thinking, "TOLD YOU SO!" That witch. Then all Lilly wanted to do was dump crayons on the floor. So I finished up the plate while Alyssa held her for a couple of minutes and then we played while Alyssa finished up.

All in all, we had a great time! We didn't let the man (I mean rude lady) get us down! I would definitely bring Lilly back. There are a lot of fun things for little ones to do at Hands On Ceramics. Lilly loves painting. She also loves eating paint, but that’s another story for another day.


Hey guys!!! Read this: 
 "Just to let your loyal readers know.... the MEAN lady was NOT the owner of Hands On Ceramics.... in fact.... the OWNER loves to see all ages of kids painting and tried to keep the cutie occupied. FYI !!" - Lisa Gromer, owner and operator of Hands On Ceramics . It's true! Lisa helped us out by helping me get Lilly's hand print on the back of the plate (and suggesting it) and bringing us crayons and books! She is SUPER awesome! 

Above: Lilly Plate Before Kiln

Below: Lilly Out Shopping