Matthew has become difficult to photograph. He’s not uncooperative, per se, but he just won’t pose anymore like he used to. He’s just too busy! I caught a RARE, genuine smile on camera yesterday and I was THRILLED! Here it is!
A grand smile resulting from Daddy kisses!
Check out the Monday Snapshot over at PAIL Bloggers for more cute photos of cute kids!
This post is my contribution to the PAIL Monthly Theme Post. For more information about PAIL, please click here. Everyone is welcome to read, write, and comment!
I grew up in a “no questions” household – and not because we weren’t allowed to ask questions. No no. Because we had no questions* – because everything, and I mean everything, was presented to us at a very young age so that there were no mysteries. Everything from “what your dad does for a living” to “where babies come from” was shared and discussed with us in a very mature, adult, matter-of-fact manner. There was nothing to be shy about or ashamed of in our household because everything was discussed. Everything just WAS.
My dad read at least one book to us every night before bedtime, and one of the books in that rotation was, you guessed it, “Where do Babies Come From?” The book** explained it in honest detail, there was no mincing of words or making it sound all flowery and beautiful. The dad’s parts were referred to as his “penis” and “testicles,” as they should be, and the woman’s parts were referred to as her “vagina” and “womb.” Dad would mess with us and say things like, “then the daddy puts his peanuts in the mommy’s vagina,” and we’d pipe in and say, “no, Daddy, it’s his PENIS, not his peanuts!” Dad would say that the egg travelled, “to the woman’s broom,” and one of us would holler, “no, it goes to her WOMB!”
We got it.
We knew it.
We knew where babies came from, and from a very, very young age. I don’t remember NOT knowing where babies came from. I don’t remember the first time this book was read to me, and neither does my older sister. It was just part of life, and our parents (mostly, my dad) made sure we knew. We were just told not to go to school and talk about it. And we didn’t 😉 Not out of shame, but because we were told that other children should hear it from their parents like we did. Made sense to us!
Other topics were just as open in our house. Drug use (we were told that they assumed we’d try marijuana in college, but that we weren’t to let it be a habit and that nothing else was worth trying – we all honored this), alcohol (we were told that we should always call for a ride if we even thought we may need one and that we wouldn’t be in trouble), smoking (they did beg us not to do this), birth control, etc. Everything was an open topic. Sure, you could ask questions if you had them, but our family was so open, that there usually weren’t many questions to even ask. Most things had been covered in great detail, and in a very relating manner. We knew that neither of my parents were their “firsts” when it came to sex, and we knew all about their marijuana smoking past. They related their stories to us in hopes that we would take them to heart and end up not screwing up too much. And… I think that worked.
So yeah – I grew up in an open household (too open at times? YES.).
Back to the topic at hand – babies and their origins.
B and I plan to take the same approach with our children as my parents did with us. Baby making is scientific (even when babies are conceived in a bedroom full of LOVE) and it’s matter-of-fact. We need to find a book on this that does the topic justice, like the one my parents (my dad, primarily) read to us. I can’t find that book anywhere which is sad, because it had great, artistic illustrations and like I said, explained it so well. There will be no secrets when it comes to baby-making and we won’t call it stupid things like “the birds and bees.” We will call it what it is. S-E-X.
I don’t plan on having kids who ask me where babies come from, because they will know. They will know early. Matthew will know VERY soon. I just need to find the book.** But it won’t stop with the one book on where babies come from. Long ago, I researched books on IVF to explain to children how they came into the world. I found a couple, and they looked OK, but not necessarily exactly what I’m looking for. My quest continues but I do expect to supplement the “where babies come from” book with an IVF book and just go from there.*** Again, this will be started very soon and there will be no need to discuss the big question of “WHEN?” to have this discussion with our children.
I feel really, really good about this!
As our kids get older, I’m sure they’ll ask questions like, “why did you have to do IVF?” We will be honest. We will be open. Heck, we’ve been open and honest with everyone around us when it comes to this topic, so why wouldn’t be honest with our children about it? They will be told about our struggles, our one attempt at an IUI, and our multiple rounds of IVF – and this will all be presented in a way that makes them realize how much they were wanted – and not how painful the journey was to get to them.
There will be no secrets, because there already are none.
* I did have a FEW questions about sex and I did ask them. One of them was, “how does the man’s penis get firm enough to put in the woman’s vagina?” At a young age, I knew that a flimsy piece of flesh couldn’t just be shoved up a tiny hole and it work. The other question I asked my dad (with my older sister present) was, “what is oral sex?” I was in junior high and I thought it was phone sex. I’m not shitting you!
** Look what I just found on Amazon! Where Do Babies Come From? This is on its way to my house right now, for the bargain price of $4.00! Will be fun to see if it’s as great as I remember 😉
*** The book I am leaning towards to explain IVF: I Can’t Wait to Meet You
Last week, while Matthew was fighting a nap, we got to rough housing a bit on the bed. He started it, and I kept it going. So fun!
Holy hell, I originally posted this from my phone and it uploaded the FULL SIZE photo. No – you do NOT need to see a close-up of my pores! Sorry about that!
This is my contribution to the Monday Snapshot over at PAIL. Go and check out the fun!
B has a wonderful business partner who he has actually known for 12 years now. They worked together when B first got out of college, and she recruited him to his current company three years ago. B loves his job immensely and we are grateful for her every day! She is a wonderful woman with an awesome family – the type of family you want to emulate. She and her husband (who is a nurse – do they get any nicer than that??) have two boys who are very tender-hearted. They LOVE Matthew and Matthew loves them. The boys (13 and 10) picked out a Christmas present for Matthew and would not allow their mom to give it to him until they could be there to watch him open it. So this weekend, we took Matthew to watch one of the boys play in a basketball tournament (OMG Matthew LOVED watching the boys play basketball!) where he got his gift afterwards.
Those boys picked out the PERFECT gift for Matthew! Turns out that they had one when they were his age and loved it for years – and just had to get it for Matthew. What did I tell you? Tender-hearted boys (even if the older one tries to act tough most the time – HA!)! When these boys see Matthew, their faces just light up and vice versa. It’s so special!
This is my weekly contribution to the Monday Snapshot over at PAIL Boggers. Check out the other cute Monday memories here!
We got a text from my dad on the 2nd saying that my grandpa could be dying. He has a DNR, and it goes beyond that, really. He also has specific orders to not treat any illnesses, even simple ones. This causes me much stress, to be perfectly honest. We were told he was weak and disoriented and that they’d know more in a couple of days, but that the speculation was pneumonia. I don’t waste time when it comes to these things. Two days are too long to wait to see if a possible “last visit” is really needed. To me, a possible “last visit” that turns out to be u”nnecessary” is just an extra visit with my grandpa – which is a good thing!
We made plans to go home on the 4th. The 3rd was just too hectic and Matthew still had a residual cough from the holidays, so we figured an extra day for that to settle down would be good. My dad called the morning of the 4th to say that we’re welcome to come, of course, but that Grandpa had made a miraculous recovery. Of course he had. He ALWAYS does.
But some day, he won’t.
We went home anyway, and saw Grandpa two days in a row. The first time, only I saw him for a couple of minutes to say hello. The next morning, he was up and at ’em, watching football and eating breakfast. We had a nice visit. Matthew was scared of his oxygen mask, but was still smiley and happy to see him after he warmed up. When Grandpa got in bed without his oxygen mask, Matthew wanted to be in there with him. Of course he did 🙂
I’m not sure that any of these pictures are different from one another, but I love them all for different reasons!
This is my contribution to The Monday Snapshot over at PAIL Bloggers. Go and check it out!
It’s time for another Monday Snapshot, hosted by PAIL. I went through my camera roll on my phone and could find nothing – NOTHING. I have been just terrible at taking photos of Matthew lately, mostly because he’s moving so quickly that he won’t sit still long enough for me to take a photo. AND – the minute he sees the phone pointed at him, he wants to be the one to TAKE the picture, not the one to be IN the picture. The front-facing camera has allowed me to get some shots, but they’re never very clear:
See – would be super cute if it was more clear. Look at him posing!
And then I remembered this photo – that B took with our good camera that I am actually using as the wallpaper on my phone right now. I switch up my lock-screen photo rather regularly, but I just can’t seem to get myself to replace this one. So here is my “official” Monday Snapshot photo!
This captures Matthew in all of his mischief, cuteness, and sweetness!
Christmas 2012 is in the books. It’s over. It’s done.
We I learned a lot.
Back in November when PAIL had their monthly theme post on Traditions, I skipped it. I skipped it because I had no idea what I wanted our traditions to be. I knew what I didn’t want them to be for the holidays, but I had no idea what my plans were for the traditions we would establish for our family.
What I knew (and still know) we won’t do:
B and I have talked a bit about what each of our families did for the holidays, but until this year, those conversations were in passing and we didn’t really dwell on anything because we had no idea what we wanted our traditions to be. This year, we did discuss what each of our families did and we incorporated aspects of each into our own holidays with Matthew.
These conversations were rather short – because B’s family had two traditions besides gift-giving. They decorated the tree together, and B’s dad opened each ornament and gave it to the child who it belonged to and let him/her put it on the tree wherever they wanted it to be. And they woke up to the smell of blueberry muffins on Christmas morning. They ate muffins (and crescent rolls) and opened presents. Sure, they went to Grandma’s the night before and their aunt and uncle’s every-other year for the holidays, but as far as their immediate family’s traditions go, tree decorating and blueberry muffins were it.
Easy!
My family’s holidays were a bit more complicated (but fun). We spent tons of time making Christmas cookies together – all sorts! Our favorites were the sugar cookies but we also enjoyed the Spritzes my mom would make (they are awesome in milk). We would spend time as a family wrapping presents together, in disguised boxes so that no one knew what we were wrapping. We decorated the house together (this was not fun – too much micro-managing from our parents every.single.year) and listened to Christmas music all season long. We opened presents the weekend before Christmas so that we were free to travel and spend time with extended family on Christmas Eve and Christmas day. Santa came to our house (he was a wonderful Santa and he came from the time I was 2 until I was 13) the Saturday before Christmas and brought us a very special gift at that time. Our grandparents would come over and we’d get all dressed up (ugh), have a huge Christmas dinner, welcome Santa, and then open presents. It was quite fun and memorable, aside from getting dressed up 😉
On Christmas Eve, we went to my dad’s folks’ house and had a great time with aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents. This was yet another formal affair (ugh) but it was super fun, nonetheless. My sister would play the organ and we would sing Christmas carols together. We had another huge, formal meal, opened presents, and played games together with the sound of traditional Christmas music playing in the background. My best Christmas memories are of this time, without a doubt. We would go to Christmas service (not mass) as an immediate family at midnight (my dad’s family went to mass) and we loved that because all we did was sing Christmas carrols and the church had a fabulous choir! We would come home, snuggle into bed, and then wake up Christmas morning to stuffed stockings (we knew that they were filled by Mom and Dad because Santa had already come to see us the weekend before) before loading up the car to head to my mom’s family’s home 3.5 hours away. Once there, we spent the next day and night with cousins, cousins, and more cousins! Even more fun memories there!
So – when you strip out the extended family events, my family had many traditions. Some worth keeping (cookies, Christmas music) and some worth scrapping (making the decorating of the house a miserable affair).
So, without further delay, here is what we did, and what will continue to be traditions for our family:
So there you go – that’s my plan for our holiday traditions going forward. I couldn’t have come up with all of that without going through the motions of a holiday season with a real, bona-fide toddler 🙂
Now, much of this won’t apply for next year because my dad has already Bogart-ed all of Christmas (24th – 27th) with a family trip to Colorado, but I’m willing to take one for the team (my family) next year so that I never have to do it again . This will allow us to re-establish our traditions going forward from there. Sometimes, you have to give your controlling parents what they want, so that you can ultimately end up with what you want in the end 😉
* B has ALWAYS asked me to make sugar cookies with red hots. I have never done it. I’ve never had the desire, until this year. It made me really happy to do this for him 🙂
In his jimmer jammers at Pane.ra.
Merry Christmas Eve, everyone!
This is my addition to PAIL’s weekly Monday Snapshot. Click on over to check out other fun Christmas Eve photos!
I spent the weekend going through Matthew’s old clothes and moving the things out of his closet that don’t fit anymore. This is always a sad exercise for me 😦 We went through and organized a bunch of his REALLY old stuff (0-12 months) and that was really tough on my heart. It made me wish for another little boy who can wear all of Matthew’s cute stuff 😉
I took a photo like this when we moved out his 6-12 month clothes. I wish I’d been doing this all along. I will continue to take these until he goes to college. HA!
This is my contribution to the Monday Snapshot series over at PAIL. Go check out the rest of the cute kiddos for the week!
We had a hectic morning yesterday – B went out for a run and I had to get Matthew and myself ready while he was gone. Matthew usually quietly plays with his trucks and watches CG. Yesterday, he got his hands on a box of wipes and I figured it was fine because they were mostly dried out anyway – he could have at it! I then quickly forgot about his new little past time until I came out and saw this… I came to check on him because it was just TOO quiet!
A box of wipes, CG, old baby gym support rods, a bunch of books, and one cute little boy!
This is my contribution to PAIL’s Monday Snapshot. Click on over and check out the other fun kiddos!
All the Sun For You 