Miserable Milestones Every Parent Dreads

Milestones are a way to gauge if your child is 'normal', and often you will hear parents bragging that their kids reached this one or that one like they are a genius or something. But what they don't tell you is a lot of these markers of development are not so fantastic. In fact some of them are downright awful.

You see, a growing developing child is experiencing so many new sensations and realizing so many new things, that their little brains and bodies can't process it all. And that means a lot of these amazing milestones are actually torturous for both your child and you. Here are just a few of the miserable milestones every parent can expect to experience...

- The first time your child throws a full on, rolling on the floor temper tantrum in a public place.

The Up-Side Of Difficult Situations

This weekend my son full on adult threw up for the first time. This might not seem like anything super traumatic, but I only realized it happened after I smelled vomit when I went in to check on him before heading to bed. There he was, sleeping face down in, and covered head to toe in vomit. I was sick to my stomach, not because of the smell, but because of how absolutely horrible and guilty I felt.

How could I not have heard this happen? How could I let him sleep like this? I was clearly a bad parent.

I gathered my emotions and woke him up, undressing him and trying to comfort him as I dealt with cleaning up the mess.

The Morning After A Night Out is What Matters the Most

The other night I went out with a group of ladies (for the first time in far too long). Naturally, the conversation turned to our partners who were at home watching the kids. Some women were getting update texts from home, while others enjoyed a baby-free phone-zone for the night. It got us talking about how it's not so much the evening away that is important, but rather, the morning after.

Before becoming a parent I didn't realize what the big deal was with a mom or dad going out for an evening. Some spouses seemed furious that their partners were having a night out. Now I know why; It's not about that night, it's about the morning after. I'm not exactly sure why, but I can tell you from experience that it is infuriating when you are doing everything solo for a day while your spouse nurses a hangover.

One night, when we were young and naive about the morning after hell, my husband and I both partied way to hard, and ended up on a rotating nap shift for the entire day. To cope in the morning one of us engaged our baby for as long as we could, and then tagged out the other from the bedroom when we couldn't take it anymore. We learned our lesson - absolutely nothing is worth going through that again.

Fashion Gift Ideas For The New Mom

OK OK... I know what your thinking. Fashion... New moms.... Oxymoron right? With mother's day around the corner I got to thinking about how much a really nice fashion gift would have been when I first had my son. I was in a fashion rut because I was so not willing to buy anything for myself. So this Mother's Day let's help the new moms in our lives out with a cute fashion gift for them, so they don't have to worry about it figuring it out themselves.

As a new mom the name of the game for me was comfort. But comfortable doesn't have to mean wearing PJs for 3 days straight (even though we have all done it... or was that just me?). So while you won't find any pencil skirts in this list, I tried to take these gift ideas up a notch from what I would normally buy myself. I think they are fashion gift ideas that every new mom would love to have in her arsenal.


A Really Really Nice Basic T-Shirt 
I don't know about you but when a t-shirt costs over $25 I can't bring myself to buy it. But the truth is there is often a reason for the higher price. The quality is better, it fits better, you feel better. A super good quality t-shirt will make a new moms day, because the simple comfort will be a step up from the bargain bin milk-covered t-shirts she's used to. Bonus points: Not see-through and not white.

Cry It Out Mom Gift Pick: Very light jersey V-Neck, $48, Splendid