Bad Parenting

Do you ever have those moments when you realize you've been a terrible parent and wish you could go back in time and fix whatever you've been doing wrong. I totally had one of those moments a few nights ago. I usually feed Elena until she falls asleep and then put her in the crib for the night. Most nights she wakes up 10-20 mins later and then cries anywhere from 10-45 mins before falling asleep again. I have always just let her cry it out because I refuse to take her out of her crib when she's down for the night. A few nights ago she sounded really upset so I went in to her and just talked to her until she calmed down and turned on her singing stuffed animal and then left the room. She never cried again until falling asleep. I did the same thing two nights ago and got the same result. Last night I actually put her down in the crib awake and she never cried. I can't believe that I never tried to calm her down before! She was probably just upset to wake up in a different place alone. Poor kid!

While we're on the subject of bad parenting I thought I'd post some pics of how we deformed her ankles. The socks that I had for when she was a newborn were tight on her ankles, which I thought was a great thing because they stayed on. They were on her all the time except when I bathed her. I did notice the indentations when I bathed her, but assumed that they would go away if I ever left her socks off for longer than a few minutes. After two months of this her ankles were quite deformed. They have improved quite a bit, but you can still tell where those socks were.