Cry It Out

Here is Peter in our bed this morning. That is his happy place. But last night he was in a sad place, because we let this little guy cry it out for the first time ever. 

Well, the first time at home. I know he cried it out atleast once at the hospital when he was there for RSV. I had left and gone home and when I got back, he was crying and the nurse was out talking at her desk and I couldn't believe she wasn't in there atleast rocking him or something to give him comfort!! The poor kid hadn't had any food for over 6 hours and she just left him to cry alone. I don't know how long he had been crying, and I guess I rescued him before he gave up, so maybe he didn't finish crying it out. Last night he cried for 40 minutes. I did hold him and give him a hug after the first 10 minute, then again after another 15 minutes I gave him a hug and kiss and told him he was safe and loved and that it was time for night night, and I set him back in the crib, and he started to cry again. We went to bed late, so all of this started at 11:50. He was crying until after 12:30. He finally did go to sleep and bonus - he slept through the night! So that was encouraging! I woke him up at 6 and fed him before I had to take carpool at 7. He nursed and fell back to sleep, but I think we'll try it again tonight, only we'll do it a little earlier. This is your new normal Peter! Ocean sound white noise on, night light shining, and then into the crib with a soft blanket and a kiss you go = night-night! This morning I thought his eyes looked a little puffy,

...but he's still our happy and pampered little guy. That's the prerogative of the baby of the family. This morning was a first for his baby yoga - he did his downward dog on the dishwasher door which I thought was cute and hilarious.

A lot of the snow is gone, and so I was in the backyard raking pine needles and filling up the garbage can. It's trash day and one of our cans was completely empty. So this was my chance. The little boys got dressed and went outside with me. Owen helped Daniel get dressed. After they had their coats on, Owen pointed out to Daniel: "Daniel! You need pants!" Daniel replied "No, I don't want pants..." And I imagined if they were older kids, how funny that would be.

Owen insisted D put on pants and even went upstairs to get pants for him, so nice. Sometimes they are so nice and helpful to each other. Other times, they're not. But I'm glad when they are. Thankfully they never hold grudges or seem to even remember, when they are playing nicely, what it was that they were yelling at each other about 5 minutes ago. They played nicely outside in the snow.

They told me they were making Olaf.

We saw Frozen 2 recently. I wanted to catch the toddler boys up on the characters and back story, so we've watched Frozen 1 a few times at home since then. The boys are not singing "Let It Go" like their sisters did, but they have been pretending they are Olaf when he gets his nose "I love it even more!" It's too cold today for them to make an Olaf though. The snow is too icy. It was in the mid 20s. Brr, I was cold when I was raking, but am glad to clean up the back yard a little bit. I love our evergreen pine trees, but I don't love that they have ever falling pine needles. Seriously, we rake during Spring, summer, fall, and winter.

Later - I have been racking up points for the beat the parent contest, I told the kids I'm smoking them and they better kick it in gear. Honestly, 10 kids against me, they should be able to easily beat me with a little bit of effort. Anyway, as I was finishing the dishes and it was way too quiet, (aside from Owen and Daniel who had been sliding down the the stairs in a sleeping bag for the past half hour) I was nervous the rest of the kids were watching tv without permission (and without having practiced.) Good news - they were just playing barbies.

(They played barbies for about 6 hours today.) I told them I'm glad that they have been playing nicely, but they still need to do jobs (aka clean their room).

Oh well, no points for the girls today. Into my room - tv wasn't on, yay.

Wes was holding Peter...

Peter was asleep. They were listening to Piano Man. So cute.

This might make it hard for Peter to know it's night night when I put him in the crib. But, super cute...
10:00 and time to put this kid in his crib. He cried it out while I finished vacuuming, which makes it easier to not feel bad for him when I can't hear him much. He fell asleep after about 20 minutes, he's a good baby.