I totally understand you wanting to make your giveaway for simblrs only. Don't let the haters stop you from doing wonderful things for the simblr community. You could always do a discord server and do a giveaway for them. Anyway, I have a question. If someone is new and is trying to get stuff started (recolors and gameplay), but circumstances is halting that - can that person not enter? Just asking :) Have a fabulous day & I won't stop following you no matter what :)
I may make a discord. that's a good suggestion. :) If someone is a simmer then they are counted as an entry. I am not discounting people in any way.. never have never will. I am just making sure that whoever wins the island living EP is a simmer. Iâm doing it for you guys more than I'm doing it for me. I just want people to remember that. It's a giveaway. I fully respect that most people who do enter will unfollow afterward.. it was just something I wanted to do out of the kindness of my heart. & Thank you for the loyal following <3 and i hope you have an amazing day also.
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LQ: Changes in your parenting ideals - your answers!
On Monday I asked how your thoughts and practices changed from expecting your little one/s to actively parenting them. I had mentioned that if 19 year old, first time mom me had met up with 29 year old, expecting her fifth child me, that she would think I was absolutely bonkers.
19 year old had zero passion for breastfeeding. 29 year old is thrilled at the idea of tandem nursing Severus and new baby, T.
19 year old bought a crib, bassinet, a huge stroller and bouncy seats for every room in everyone's homes. 29 year old only bought a bassinet and seat because we live in a two story home and won't be able to wear him all the time - realistically.
19 year old would never dream of foregoing well baby appointments, or not paying attention to percentiles and following recommendations to the letter. 29 year old can't even remember what the kids' pediatrician's name is, or where the office is located, because we only go when the kids are sick and NEED to be seen.
Those are just a few ways I've changed since becoming a parent, I get even more radical as you get to know me. :P Here are some of your experiences.
anotherdecemberbaby said:Â When I was pregnant, I was sure we wouldn't cosleep. Mostly because of my own fear that I'd roll over her as I used to be a very deep sleeper. No longer, and we've been cosleeping from the beginning! I also thought that if I'd had a boy that I'd circ, but knowing what I know now, there's no way I would! (really glad I had a girl because I'm not sure when my mind changed on that!!)
medlinniel said:Â Whrn I had my first-born, I swore to myself she would not get an ounce of formula or baby food from a jar. I didn't know thrn what I know now, so I didn't trust when my breasts seemed milk-less and grabbed one of the maaany cans the hospital had given me, "just in case". Thrn when the time came, I bought her organic JARRED baby food. Totally felt like a failure
cyrus-thevirus said:Â When I was younger, I never thought I'd become a parent & here I am, expecting my second. While pregnant with Cyrus, my first, I never really had strict "I will never do this that & the other" thoughts. But we never thought we'd end up being co-sleepers. Not that we had anything against it, we just figured it'd be easier to have baby in the crib. Well, actually, I was too scared to have Cyrus sleep alone in his crib that he slept in his infant car seat next to the bed for his first week of life!
electradaddy said: âBecause I said soâŚ.â - Promised I would never say this phrase but then my children learned to talk and question authority (constantly) so I decided sometimes, as a parent, itâs my right to say, âBecause I said soâŚ.â
Do you want to share any of the ways you've changed? There's still time! Write your entry on your Tumblr and tag it with lastquestion so we can read your response. :D
Did you have any ideas about parenting before you became a parent yourself? Or, are you expecting your first and just know there are some things you don't want to do, or will do?
With my first I intended on following what the most popular parenting books said to do.
After we brought my daughter home, and the pediatrician's night line started sighing at me because everything I expected from the books didn't happen, I began to rely a little bit more on my instincts.Â
I was the laughing stock of my family, I would not hear them out and heard a lot of "We did THIS with you, and you survived..." Alright granted, I'm STILL the laughing stock of my family, and if 19 year old me had met 29 year old me, she would think I was nuts. I've changed... a lot.
What about you? Did you find it harder to stick to some of the things you said you'd "never" do? What were some of the things you were sure you'd try, but didn't? Tell us in a message here, or an email to growinguplastATgmail.com and we'll publish your answers on Friday!
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LQ: What are your parenting boundaries, and how do you enforce them?
As I posted on Monday, this weekâs last question is about your parenting boundaries. Do you have certain things you donât want your kid(s) to have? If someone in your family gives it to them anyway, what do you do? Do you have set boundaries, or do you just go with the flow? Your answers below!
Katie says: I donât like Isla to have a lot of sugary or processed foods, and Iâm very adamant that she get fruit or vegetables at every meal. My in-laws are very into healthy eating and have been very supportive of this and are great about making sure whatever she eats, itâs healthy. My parents, though, are more relaxed about this sort of thing and think Iâm a little uptight about what she eats. I let it slide occasionally (at restaurants in particular), but mostly I just stick to my guns. It helps that Iâve always been bossy and sort of eccentric, at least as far as my family is concerned, so they mostly go along with whatever I want just so things go smoothly. Everyone around us seems to respect the fact that Kellen and I are the parents. I think thatâs in part because weâve been so vocal about it (start as you mean to go!), and in part because we know/are related to great people. Weâre lucky in that.
Kay says:Â Iâm pretty go with the flow about things (helloooo, Matthew drinks coffee with me more often than his dad does!) and I realize that I canât control everything that goes on when Matthew is with someone else. My biggest thing is not letting him have nuts. Not because of allergies but because he chews on them & decides he doesnât like it, then spits it out. In that case, I usually make him give the prechewed peanuts back to the person that gave them to him in the first place.
Christina says:Â Whenever we bring Dylan to either of his grandmothers houses for a visit, the first thing they do is put on the TV for him. We take very painstaking measures to limit the amount of television that Dylan watches (by painstaking I mean basically handling a lot of meltdowns and tantrums when we say âNO!â) since he still is under 2yo. I personally dont like what that kind of instant gratification does to a babys brain. Dylan might watch an hour long episode (sometimes less if we skip through all of the Mr. Perkins parts) in the morning, but always watches one full episode after dinner before bed and thats it.Â
Ive asked the grandparents (this is both sides by the way) to keep the TV off when heâs over there, nicely. Ive tried putting it in the nicest way possible, âWell, when you have the TV on he isnt going to acknowledge your existence. Hes pretty much just going to be glued to the box and wont engage or answer you at all so you might as well just leave it offâ, but even with that sound reasoning and logic, they still put it on. âBut he likes it and grandmas are supposed to spoil their grandkidsâ is what they tell me. To be fair, I havent said outright, âI dont want him to watch TV while hes here so please just leave it offâ. Jared and I have pretty much resigned ourselves to the fact that he only visits their homes once a week, and if his grandparents would rather spend time with him fighting for his attention or watching him watch TV, then is it worth starting a whole âissueâ? With the way our families operate, it would turn in to an issue. Â
They take fabulous care of him otherwise. Theyre very attentive and loving. You have to pick your battles, I suppose.
Now, if we were going on vacation for a week and were leaving him behind (lets just say) we would definitely leave his routine all spelled out for them and expect them to follow it. Its one thing to get âspoiledâ once a week with a few hours of TV and quite another to establish a new routine of bad behavior. I would be very disappointed and upset if our wishes as his parents were consistently ignored. Â
Marci says: No guns. Not even water guns. We live in an area that is relatively high in child gun violence and I donât want E thinking guns arenât serious business. EVER. Â All of our family has (so far) respected this and if we get them in birthday goody bags, we just toss them. One year at Halloween my sister even had her boys pick characters who didnât use guns as their costumes so that we would be more comfortable trick or treating.
LQ: What are your parenting boundaries, and how do you enforce them?
I've been thinking about this a lot lately, because my sister and my mom, neither of whom live in the same state as me, send Cormac things we would never, ever buy him, even when I ask them not to.They only see him a couple times a year and they tend to go a little overboard with gifts, but we live in a 1,068 square foot house with two adults, one toddler, two dogs, two cats, an two fish. Not a lot of room for extra plastic crap, you know?Â
The issue came up recently when they both sent Mac ridiculous Easter baskets. Like, RIDICULOUS, over-the-top, sugar-tastic, plastic extravaganzas. We weren't even going to do anything for Easter because we're not religious, Mac goes bonkers if he has chocolate, and we had other shit going on. But then these packages show up with his name on them. We had to try to explain the Easter Bunny, a character he didn't even know other people believe in, and religion and do the thing. My mom & sister think it's crazy that we weren't going to do anything. That's another story.
So I'm asking you this: Do you have certain things you don't want your kid(s) to have? If someone in your family gives it to them anyway, what do you do? Do you have set boundaries, or do you just go with the flow?Â
Send us your answers either here or at [email protected] and we'll post them on Friday!
For a couple of weeks, I've been asking you to send in your "Holy crap, I'm REALLY a parent!" moments.
For a lot of parents, it's as soon as their baby is placed in their arms, and for others that magnitude of really knowing you're a parent, doesn't come until they've successfully changed a diaper on a child hanging upside down.Â
Here, I'm going to share your moments. It's not too late to participate! You can write your own and then tag it with #lastquestion.Â
For those of you who shared your moments - thank you! I loved reading them.Â
- Monique
Our own Dawn said:Â Rocco was only a few days old. Maybe 10 days. Im not sure. I was trying to sleep so Vin was trying to keep an eye on him. All I could hear was the baby screaming and Vin trying so hard and getting so frustrated. I came down stairs and into the room and said 'Its okay' and as soon as he heard my voice, Rocco stopped crying. That was the first time. First of many, for sure. In that moment I realized I was his everything. I was trying so hard to become a mother but to him, I already was.
Martha said: My first son Isaac was born with a lumpy head after 42 agonizing hours of labor that resulted in a c-section, as he was stuck in my pelvis (3 hour of pushing him into bone when he refused to rotate will do that, I guess). I was delirious with exhaustion, falling fast asleep on the operating table while my husband got the first snuggles with his son. They gave me some time to recover before moving us into our room. It was nearly 10pm by then so after some brief lessons on nursing which I barely absorbed, they set up my husband's cot, tucked me in, swaddled up the baby and left him in the bassinet next to me before turning off the lights and leaving us to get some rest for the night. My husband literally completely collapsed head-first into his pillow and immediately started snoring. I was a wreck myself, and put my head back to drift into the heavy sleep I so desperately needed. Suddenly my rest was disturbed by a foreign sound - why am I dreaming of tiny kittens? I asked my subconscious. Go away kittens, I need some rest here don't you know I was just gutted? The sound grew louder and louder, fully arousing me from that blessed slumber.
I looked around confused and agitated, and was faced with not a tiny kitten - but nay, none other than a tiny, wiggling human baby who was pissed off about something. My first instinct was to find out whose child it was and make them do something about it. But in that moment I panicked - this was MY child, who was just ripped from MY abdomen and placed in this room with me, its mother. This was my baby who was crying and I was supposed to make it stop. Problem was, I was still completely paralyzed from the waist down and unable to move nearly at all. C-section babies have a tendency to be pretty mucousy, because they didn't move down the birth canal and have all that stuff squeezed out of them. So the tiny baby who needed me but was beyond my reach starts choking and nearly foaming at the mouth. I start yelling at my husband to GET THE FUCK UP AND HELP ME...but he's snoring away this beautiful moment and is beyond hope. I start searching for something to throw at him but all I have in my vicinity is a handkerchief...which I manage to chuck at his head and watch it land peacefully on his face as he cuddles up to it and doesn't budge. Meanwhile the human is still crying and choking and I'm frantically doing the same and suddenly remember that there are these people down the hall called "nurses" whose job it is to help me in these situations. I manage to locate the call button and the loveliest nurse comes in to pat the little boy on the back and get his mucus out. She also helps me with our first real nursing session and the baby finally settles. She can see the rough state that I'm in and offers to take the baby with her back to the nurses station so I can get some real sleep. I managed to get about 3 hours before she came sneaking back in, baby was hungry. That first night was tough - so tough, and was a REAL wake up call about my new responsibilities. I spent all this time growing him inside my body and when he was finally outside the womb, crying for his mama, it's like I had no idea what to do about it. Definitely an "oh shit...I'm a parent" moment.
Electradaddy said: I knew I was a parent when the nurse matched our id bracelets to the twins' id bracelets & then cut them off. She smiled and said, "Congratulations, dads," which she immediately followed up with, "Yeah. I have twins, too, and remember what those first few months were like. Oh, Gawd. Well, see ya. Wouldn't wanna be ya," and with that she was gone & we were left standing there. Alone. With two newborn babies. Both of whom had just pooped.
Monstersmommy said:Â My "Oh $#!+ I'm a parent!" moment was the first time I saw my husband holding our son. The look of wonder on his face really brought it home for me.
Dan said:Â The first time I had a âholy shit Iâm a parentâ moment was about ten minutes after Max was born. He was rushed into NICU because of MAS and though he was feet from us, they doctors wouldnât let us see him. I get enraged, they were keeping my child from me after all! And it was there that I realized what I said, âmy child.â Suddenly, all the shit I had harbored about my own bad parents and anxieties I had about not caring melted away. He was my child and I was his parent and I knew that was all that mattered, really.
Amanda said:Â My first "holy shit I'm a parent" moment was when we brought Abby home from the hospital and I sat down on our couch and breastfed her. That was the first time I cried and the first time it really hit me that we got to keep her :)
Noah said: I've had many holy poop moments of parental realization, but the most apparent things to me are the collection of little obsessions I've acquired. I now think differently about things, like having enough snack, diapers, wipes, and water available for our little dude in case we get stranded at the mall.  I mean, before having him, I would not have obsessed over such a silly thing.  The other day I fretted while putting on Mr.'s socks.  Are they too tight?  Will it cut off his circulation?  Mind you, these are socks that were newly purchased in an appropriate size. Â
Let's not get started on the fact that he stepped in dog poo over the weekend and wore the same shoes to daycare today, where he is infamous for nibbling and gnawing on his shoes.  I washed them and cleaned them with Clorox wipes as best a human can.  However, it is still there, the little obsessive voice in my head, the worry wart feeling, and the I'm-being-crazy-and-slightly-paranoid-just-for-you BECAUSE I love you tick.
I suppose it will always linger as a reminder to me that I am a parent looking out for and helping my child, my offspring, an extension of myself and I would not trade it for the world.
