All the Sun For You

A mom, two boys, a husband, and a whole lot of adventure!

Category Archives: PAIL


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Screen Time

This post was written as a PAIL monthly theme post.

I am way behind on writing this month’s theme post – it’s due TONIGHT.  I’ve been out-of-town – on the road – parenting solo.  I didn’t think my little road trip would impact this month’s post, but it has.  You see, when you solo parent, some things just have to slide.  Like your TV rules.

We were at my sister’s house north of Chicago – the sister with FOUR kids (3 of them being (just turned) 4, almost 2 (October), and 4 months).  She is a great mom, and let’s face it, with 4 kids, you do what you have to do to stay sane.  And one of the things she does is allow TV.  This had me a bit worried before we went for our visit.

B and I do not watch TV.  It’s not that we’re all weird and against it because it’s wrong or we think it makes us stupid – we just don’t watch it.  We have other things to do (like hammer away on our computers).  We used to record shows (maybe 3 shows) but then our DVR computer broke and we realized we didn’t miss it, and that was 4 years ago.  We don’t have any premium channels because we don’t need them – because we don’t watch TV*.

This drives my parents insane.

I grew up in a TV-loving house.  My parents have always had the TV on ever since we were young.  We sometimes almost always had the TV on during dinner (but hey – we ate dinner together every night as a family so I’m not passing judgment here – most families didn’t eat together like we did and we were lucky!).  My parents have a TV in every room (and two in one of their rooms) and are proud of that.  At any given time in my parents’ house, at least two TV’s are always on (and there are only 2 people living there), and many times, there are three TV’s on.  The best part is that the majority of them are tuned in to Fox News (and I am passing judgement with that sentence.  HA!).

B and I have made a conscious decision to limit Matthew’s exposure to TV.  He does watch Law and Order with me.  Or I should say, he plays in our room while I fold laundry and watch a re-run of Law and Order.  I worry that one of his first words may be “perp.”  HA HA!  But beyond that, the boy does not watch TV.  We refer to it as “the lighted box” when he does see the TV (at my parents’ house) but the truth is – he just doesn’t care about it.  I figured it was because we were watching adult shows and nothing that would interest him.

So here I was at my sister’s where the TV is on a few times a day.  And GASP – they let the kids watch Sponge B.ob.  I wasn’t sure what to think of that but then I realized I didn’t need to think about it because Matthew didn’t pay it any attention.  He was more interested in the glowing cable box than the huge TV with colors dancing all over the screen.  I noticed that my sister’s kids didn’t care too much about it either.  All the thought I’ve put into this whole TV thing, and my child does.not.even.care.  Amazing!

We have decided that Matthew can watch TV, just not the commercialized stuff.  Nature Channel, you bet.  Sesa.me Stre.et (and yes, I know that’s highly commercialized), that’s fine.  The Wig.gles, sure (because this kid loves to dance!).  We just don’t want him watching mindless cartoons and things that provide no value at all.

I think this plan will work out because we just don’t watch TV ourselves.  If we watched TV after he went to bed, then we could have a problem on our hands.  However, we just don’t.  We’d rather rent a movie or work on our computers (which is a whole other post).

And.. this plan will work out because we just cancelled our cable.  We were paying for something neither of us used – and we are thrilled to be saving that money each month.  (Poor?) Matthew will be down to just broadcast channels when he does start watching TV, which is just the way we like it!

* When B is out of town, or sometimes during the day, I will watch a re-run of Law and Order.  I do, and always will, love that show (all varieties of it)!


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Memorable Moments Monday

The boy wouldn’t sleep. We’re visiting my sister after a 6.25 hour car ride minus B, and Matthew was too fired up and happy to go to bed on time. This photo was taken around 10:15.

He is asleep now, and we’re sharing a room so I’ll be lulled to sleep soon by the lovely ocean sound coming from the sound machine. I love the sound machine!

The drive went ridiculously well! Matthew only cried for 20-30 minutes and slept or danced the rest of the way. It’s like he knew I was solo and couldn’t entertain him. What a good boy!!!

I will not be blogging or commenting most if this week because I only have my phone and typing posts and comments via phone is not fun or easy. But I’m still reading, and thinking of all of you!!!!


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Memorable Moment Monday – Jeans Edition

I love nothing more than my baby boy in jeans.  He looks so cute in his Ga.p jeans and I cannot stop staring at him when he wears them.  It was cool enough today to put him in some jeans and I could not take my eyes off of him.

How cute is his tushie in those jeans? (You don’t really need to answer – that’s a rhetorical question!)

To see more, check out PAIL’s Memorable Moment Monday.


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Memorable Moment Monday – Daddy’s Boy Edition

It’s time for another installment of Memorable Moment Monday over at Pail Bloggers.

Matthew is quite the “Daddy’s Boy” lately.  When B left this morning, it was hard getting Matthew out of his arms without tears.  It was hard on both of them.  There has been recent talk of B maybe needing to travel more for work, and that’s been weighing on him.  Having that on his mind as he left today made this  morning’s episode even harder on B.  But he found out just a bit ago that there won’t be more travel at work – so that’s good!

When I told Matthew that Daddy just found out that he doesn’t need to travel more, this is what I got:

Good stuff!

And then he went to snuggle his favorite kitty cat (after a wardrobe change because, well, his nap time diaper leaked)!


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Considering Our Family…

This post is my contribution to the PAIL monthly theme post. 

“I’m bored with you, Mom. Please give me a little brother or sister ASAP!”

So here we are, it’s July and I’ve just finished up breastfeeding Matthew so that we can move onto TTC #2 with fertility treatments.  Yay.  😉  I am a little irritated that Matthew and I have to give up something that we both love just to try something.  There are no guarantees that it will work any time soon – and there is a part of my brain that is angry that we had to stop nursing just to attempt something that only has a 40% success rate.  But I need to get over it – because it is what it is.

I am ambivalent about TTC #2 (if you can’t tell!).  Working on #1 was very hard on me – it took 1 full year of trying naturally, then 2 IUI’s (both BFN’s), then a fresh IVF cycle (BFN), then a frozen cycle (very early miscarriage), and then another fresh IVF cycle (Matthew!).  From starting the TTC process to a successful ultrasound, it took us over 2.25 years.  2.25 years.  God, I hope it doesn’t take that long again!

For me, ideal child spacing would be about 3 years, but we don’t have that luxury.  I am 36, Matthew is very social and really needs a sibling ASAP, and… we have 7 embryos in the freezer.  We want to give them all a chance if we can, which means that we could be looking at TTC #3 if all goes well with #2 and we have a couple of embryos left over again.  In other words, we need to GET ON IT!  If I had my way, I would wait a little longer so that Matthew and I could have a little more “us time,” but I do forget that getting pregnant doesn’t yield us a baby for at least 8-9 months so there’s still plenty of “us time” ahead of us.  AND – the only reason I say that 3 years is ideal is because my little sister is 3 years younger than me and we are true besties – she was my very first love and always will be.  Maybe 2 years spacing would be ideal for my babies and that’s all that really matters.

And then there’s this… given what it takes for us to get pregnant, maybe my babies will end up being 3 years apart anyway.  We just never know.  And that’s the whole point of all of this, right?  We just don’t know what’s going to happen and we need to trust fate and just jump in feet first!

But… I do know that both my head and heart are ready to get started again.  We definitely want another baby (or two!) and we know that Matthew wants a little friend, so it’s time to make this happen.  I have no doubts that it will work, but the question is how long it will take and what all it will take.  Our RE has different ideas of what we’ll do if the first FET fails (he wants to do a fresh cycle, I’d like to try another FET… but he’s right – my age is an issue), so at this point, I just want it to work the first time so that I don’t have to make hard decisions.  That would be nice.  However, that would not be likely.

I do know that I will not allow myself to be as stressed out about this as I was when we were trying desperately to get Matthew.  We have one baby already and that is all we need – we are complete with him.  I have written about this several times – I feel it deep down in my soul that Matthew completed our family for us.  Every baby after him is an extra cherry on top of our sundae (and I love cherries!)!  We are no longer looking at being childless, so that makes TTC #2 way easier on an emotional level.  Sure, I’ll throw my heart and soul into it, but I have a little boy who warms my heart and completes my soul.  He gives me strength.  He gives me happiness.  He gives me peace.  I will kindly take those gifts from him and use them to make this process easier on us ALL (B included).  I assure you, and myself, of that.