Monroe Parenting

By Shawna Schmitt, sschmitt@monroenews.com

So Dave and I went to the wedding tonight of a close relative and it was suppose to be an “adult only” event. No kids were invited, so Caitlyn and Keegan were sent to spend the night at Grandma and Papa’s house and away we went.

The problem was that despite that decree, concessions were made for the family of the bride and when we got there we counted SIX children from her side of the family. And yet the rest of us were forced to leave our little ones at home. Now how in the world is that fair?!

I was told repeatedly to “behave myself” and “just get over it” but I’m sorry. Dave and I both felt insulted and hurt that we couldn’t bring our kids (who are very well behaved in public) to the wedding, but other children the same age were allowed.

I know I’m not the only person who felt this way but I bit my tongue simply to keep the peace. But now that I’m home and had a chance to think about it, I’m even more upset over the situation.

Do some people just ignore the fact that kids aren’t invited and bring them anyway? How does a wedding for adults only end up with six children in tow???

By Shawna Schmitt, sschmitt@monroenews.com

Caitlyn can be a very picky eater, but I have discovered the secret to tickling her tastebuds…….

It’s really very easy — simply rename whatever it is on the plate into something silly.

For instance, this morning I made her a toasted English muffin with butter and cinnamon sugar. She looked at it rather oddly until I mentioned that it was nothing more than a “baby elephant ear.”

She perked right up.

“Mommy, did you get it from the fair for me?” she asked.

Um, sure, yeah, my fair kitchen, lol.

Let me just say that she ate the whole darn thing.

Also good to try are calling mashed potatoes “clouds” and whole kernal corn “little bits of sunshine.”

Anybody else got any good ones?

By Shawna Schmitt, sschmitt@monroenews.com

The kids and I went to Aldi’s last week and brought home a big paper towel box loaded with our groceries. It was a good size and had a oval-shaped cut on the one side. I thought it would go no further than my kitchen counter………how wrong I was!

The more Caitlyn and I looked at the box, the more it began to look like a dog house. Hmmmmmmm…… well, if it was going to be a dog house, I told Caitlyn that we might as well paint it so that her stuffed puppy friends could have a respectable looking home.

I went downstairs and grabbed a couple of paintbrushes and some blue and purple acrylic paints. I used the plastic cover from a foil pie tin to put the paint in so that Caitlyn could mix the colors around without worrying about spilling anything on the carpet. I then spread out an old bed sheet, put the box in the middle of it, and turned her loose. Once she understood that I really didn’t care if she sloshed paint around, she went to work with gusto!

Seriously, we had so much fun painting that box. I felt just like Bob Ross painting “happy little clouds” of blue all over it, lol.

After about half an hour, Caitlyn declared that it was finished and we stepped back to admire our handy work. We had covered up all the paper towel logos and the blue and purple had mixed together nicely. Now all we needed to do was wait for it to dry and hope that it would before Keegan woke up from his nap and tackled the box.

Now, a week later, the way the kids have been playing with that box, you would think it was the most pricey toy from the store! Caitlyn immediately moved three of her dogs into it while Keegan used it for balance to walk around and around and around………. Then, the kids pretended to be dinosaurs and chased each other around and inside the box as they roared and giggled.

A couple nights ago, Caitlyn decided that the box was her “secret hideout” and took her bowl of ice cream inside to eat it so Keegan wouldn’t bother her.

The box also was used as the kids’ “picnic table” when we decided to spread a blanket on the floor and pretend we were having an outdoor picnic. Caitlyn wanted to keep her food off the floor and pulled the box over and said that it was her table. Keegan immediately pulled himself up to it and started investigating the food bowls.

I can honestly say that I didn’t expect the box to hang around this long. When I left for work this morning it was still sitting in the middle of my living room with stuffed animals peeking out the hole.

Who knows what it will be tonight…..a space ship? A race car? The sky’s the limit!!

By Shawna Schmitt, sschmitt@monroenews.com

Okay, we need to figure out a new bedtime routine for Keegan, because the old one just isn’t working anymore. Usually, we put him in his bouncy seat with his blankets, turn on the vibrations and feed him a bottle.

Now comes the problem: he has outgrown the bouncy seat.

He is so big that his legs hang over the end and he has figured out how to twist himself around so that he either can flip the seat or pull himself into a sitting position. Either way, not good.

When Caitlyn was little we would hold her in the chair or rock her to sleep; we tried that with Keegan and it’s like a joke. He will not stay still long enough to fall asleep. Of course, with Caitlyn it helped that we could stick the binky in her mouth to get her drowsy — Keegan has never taken one.

Letting him cry it out is not an option since A.) He shares a room with Caitlyn and it would wake her up and then we’d be dealing with two cranky littles ones, and B.) It breaks my heart to listen to him cry. He’s not the type of baby to cry himself to sleep — he just gets more and more worked up until he’s practically choking on his tears.

We tried turning on the mobile and leaving the room, but for some reason that doesn’t work anymore either.

Driving him around doesn’t work because although he may fall asleep in the car, he wakes up as soon as we stop to take him out of the car seat.

I tried dancing with him in the dark to soft music, but he thought mommy was just being silly and refused to close his eyes — he was too busy having a good time. Plus, the kid weighs a ton and after a while my arms feel like they’re going to fall off.

We always make sure that his bottom’s dry, his tummy’s full, and his clothes are comfy. We put Orajel on his gums as needed and give him warm baths before bedtime. But now I’m starting to run out of ideas and the sleepless nights aren’t helping.

So now I need some good advice: How do we get Keegan to go to sleep and stay asleep at night??????

By Shawna Schmitt, sschmitt@monroenews.com

My little Tarzan is perfecting a new skill this week: he is learning to climb! Eeeks!

A few days ago he emptied all the books off the book shelf so that he could use the shelves as “stair steps.” He just wanted to reach Daddy’s scanner and printer on the shelf above the book case…… *groan*

Then, this afternoon, Dave directed my attention to the living room. There was Keegan on the second step of the Little Tikes slide, trying to climb all the way to the top. We froze and held our breath, waiting to see if he could do it.

He got one wobbly foot in the air and it hovered there indecisively over the step. Then he put his foot back on the second step and moved his knee to the third step. He had such a tight grip on the handles as he tried to figure out whether he wanted to up and over or back down to the ground.

That’s when he must have noticed the lack of noise in the room and turned around to catch us staring at him

“Go, go, go,” Dave and I chanted.

Caitlyn wanted to go “help” him over the top.

But at that moment he gave us a big grin and let go of the handles. He happily landed on the floor, narrowly missing the dog, and he couldn’t wait to crawl over to us as if to say “Did you see me?! Did you see what I can do?!”

I’m almost afraid to see what he’ll learn to do next!

By Shawna Schmitt, sschmitt@monroenews.com

Last night Dave and I had a moment that only a parent would appreciate……

I already had Caitlyn sleeping in her bed and Dave was trying his hardest to get Keegan to go down. The little guy was in his bouncy seat with his special blankets and he had his bottle. Dave had tried singing to him the entire time I was in the other room reading Caitlyn her bedtime stories, but it didn’t work. So when I was done with Caitlyn, I joined him in our room to find a very wide-awake Keegan who thought Daddy was playing a game with him. He was bouncing and twisting around in his seat with a huge grin on his face.
Apparently, only Mommy’s singing has the power to bore the baby to sleep!

I sat down and settled in for a few rounds of “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” followed by about 10 minutes of “You Beautiful Doll” sung over and over and over. Then it was tunes from “Les Mis” and “Phantom of the Opera.”

Finally, as I was about to resort to Christmas carols, Dave and I started singing an off-key duet of “American Pie.” I looked over at him and just started laughing. We sounded awful! And yet we kept on going even though we didn’t know half the words because it was working — Keegan closed his eyes and stopped fidgeting. Pretty soon he was out like a light.

Good thing we had the air on last night because if the windows were open the neighbors probably would have thought some cats were dying in the alley! LOL.

By Shawna Schmitt, sschmitt@monroenews.com

Yesterday afternoon after I picked the kids up from my mom’s, Caitlyn asks “Mom, will you take us to the farm to see the animals please? I won’t start begging for ice cream!”

I looked up in the rear view mirror and she was so serious that I just bust out laughing. I guess I must have reinforced on numerous occasions that “we could go see the animals but that mommy didn’t have money for ice cream, so please don’t beg for any.”

It was such a cute way for her to ask, that I turned the car around and we went to the Calder’s Dairy Farm. I told her that as long as Keegan was awake when we got there that we could get out and look at the animals. But if he was asleep, then we would just pull in, say hi to the cows and drive home.

“Oh no,” she assured me. “His peekers are open! He’s not going to sleep! He’s awake!”

And darn it if that little boy didn’t stay awake all the way there! lol. He must have known where we were going!

As soon as I got them out of the car, Keegan saw the cows and instantly started squirming in excitement and saying “moooooooooooooooooooooo!” He loves it when he reaches out to pet the cows and their big ol’ tongues lick his arm. I just like listening to the kids squeal in delight.

I also was pleasantly surprised to see many other mommys there with their kids. Usually when we’re there maybe one other family will be walking around, but yesterday we ran into people near the cows, in the milking area, by the pond (where the scary ducks and geese like to roam free) and then more mommys and kids were pulling up as we were getting into our car.

I’m so glad that other people are venturing out and discovering what a wonderful place Calder’s is to take the kids! It’s like a free petting farm with an added ice cream bonus!

By Shawna Schmitt, sschmitt@monroenews.com

I heard a very disturbing thing on the radio this morning as I was getting ready for work. This woman called into a radio station as a part of their group therapy segment to get advice about her baby. Apparently, people are hassling her because she has her 11-month-old daughter on a diet so she “won’t get fat.” She doesn’t understand what’s wrong with monitoring and limiting her baby’s food intake.

She only gives her baby a certain amount of formula each day (and the baby cannot have more whether she seems hungry or not), she measures the baby food into portion sizes and — this is what horrified me most — the baby is NOT allowed to have baby cereal because it has too many carbs! Are you kidding me?!

And when the baby is old enough to switch from formula to regular milk, she will be giving her 1% milk instead of whole milk or vitamin D milk because the others are too fattening. And she thinks this is all okay because she did it with her other daughter who is now 7, even though she was complaining that her daughter tries to eat everything in sight and she can’t stop her. Well, duh she is going to try to eat anything she can get her hands on! The woman is probably starving her!!

I don’t know if this woman has body image issues herself, or if she honestly believes that she is “saving” her daughters from growing up to be fat kids/teens, but she needs help.

Babies should never be put on diets. They need all the nutrients they can get from formula, baby food and cereal to help them grow and develop properly. I wonder if she realizes that babies will stop eating when they get full.

In my opinion, what this woman is doing equates to child abuse. I just wanted to reach through the radio and shake some sense into her before her actions cause harm to her child.

Any thoughts?

By Shawna Schmitt, sschmitt@monroenews.com

Here’s the fill-in-the-blank story that Caitlyn helped write about her Daddy for Father’s Day:

My daddy is 7 years old.  He weighs 38 lbs.  And is as tall as an elephant.  His hair is short and his eyes are brown.  My dad loves to relax on the bed and he likes to wear the library shirt mommy got him.  He loves to cook: he doesn’t like to cook, he watches mommy cook.  His favorite household chore is the potty.  His favorite tv show is a scary one, the pirate one and his favorite song is stinker.  Daddy always tells me about the zoo.  It makes him happy when I sing.  When my dad shops he loves to buy sausages for me.  If he could go on a trip, he would go to the water park and he would take me.  I really love it when my dad takes me to the water park.  My dad is the best dad in the world because he is my daddy.

By Shawna Schmitt, sschmitt@monroenews.com

If you’ve read my blog before, then you know that I am a huge fan of garage sales. I guess I just can’t see the point of going to the store and spending $20 bucks on a shirt that my kid will most likely outgrow in a few months.

In the past, I have purchased Caitlyn’s entire wardrobe for the next season for $30 at a mom-to-mom sale. On Saturday, I was able to continue that tradition for Keegan.

My sister and I were out with Caitlyn and we happened upon a sale featuring all boys clothes and they were priced just right — 25 cents for shirts, 50 cents for pants, $1 for complete outfits and 15 cents for bibs. And I’m talking all name-brand clothing that had no stains, no rips and looked brand new. The ladies running the sale eventually just gave us a box and we kept tossing things in.

For $12 dollars, Keegan now has a winter coat, two fall jackets, sweaters, flannel shirts, jeans, shorts, dress pants, long-sleeve dress shirts, tank tops, sweat outfits, bibs and a new blanket. I couldn’t believe our good luck! I told Dave that if we went to the store, we wouldn’t have been able to buy the same winter coat we got for less than $25, let alone the rest of the stuff.

And Caitlyn was able to get some new clothes, too, at a couple of different sales. We found “like new” dresses for $1.50, T-shirts for 75 cents or less, and shorts for a quarter.

With prices like these, we can get so much more clothing for our money!