Gourds are Gorgeous and Organic

It's dangerous to blog when one can't sleep. In the tiredness of it all thoughts that shouldn't be written can spill out onto the page like so many grains of salt from a defunct salt shaker.

I drank some iced coffee before bed and I've been laying in bed since 10:30 drifting in and out of consciousness, fretfully obsessing over Johnny's birthday cake. His birthday party is this weekend--he's turning two! We are having a Cars themed party. Our boy loves the Pixar movie Cars. I'm glad because we do too! In fact, I downloaded the soundtrack so I could listen to it and thought I would put it onto a CD for Johnny to listen to during play time--bad idea! As soon as he heard Sheryl Crow begin singing "Real Gone" he ran to the TV and perplexedly clamored at it only to retreat in confusion--he could hear Cars, but couldn't see it--what in the world was going on here!?

We avoided videos for as long as possible and still only try to use them infrequently. They surely do come in handy when it's that twilight time of the day: Johnny needs to go to sleep but it's too late for a nap, too early for bed, or I need to cook/care for Aubrey and need him to not be so involved in everything. We did sort of resolve to only give him videos that we like. None of this Barney and Friends, or singing neuter gender rainbow haired people spouting positive self-esteem junk:

"you can do anything that you set your mind to--doobie, doobie, doo--
we're bestest friends, you and me
you are special come on with me
on a magical journey--ooh, ooh, whee--
with your best buddies Adam and Steve!"

So far, we've stuck with the two Charlie Brown Christmas movies, Disney's Robin Hood, an occasional Mary Poppins and Cars. I can handle hearing Vince Guaraldi's jazz or Allan-a-Dale's folk songs over and over. I think we could also go for some Thomas the Tank Engine, but don't yet own any of those.

Johnny's major interests right now are toys with wheels, trains, and animal crackers. He thinks they are cookies. I used to baby-sit for three kids who thought saltine crackers were cookies and felt sorry for them. Now, I see the genius of it all. Johnny also loves to be read to. We have quite a repertoire: Go Dog Go (I am always in suspense as to whether the boy dog will ever like her hat), Tuesday (we add our own sound effects to this mostly picture book), The Little Engine that Could (my childhood favorite), some Thomas books, and SkippyJonJones.

Johnny is a big SkippyJonJones fan thanks to Uncle Sonny. It's about a siamese kitten who thinks he is a chihaua (sp?). When he is sent to his room, his thoughts take him down a long desert road far, far away in old Mexico. . . . there he becomes Skippito the great sword fighter and meets up with Don Diego (the biggest of the small ones) and his gang of Chiahauhas and he conquers the villain who has been stealing their beans. SkippyJonJones is big around our house, we even have a CD of the books being read aloud which Johnny often asks for at Naptime ("JohnJones" he pleads). Sometimes, if the CD player is near the bed, Johnny will repeatedly press play so that it plays over and over and over and he knows how to up the volume. The other day, I was trying to grab a nap while he was in bed and was in that awful state where you are so tired you don't want to deal with the very loud SJJ playing incessantly, but it aggravates you so much you can't sleep. I lay on the couch with my head covered in pillows wishing that Johnny would go onto sleep and the story would stop and finally got so aggravated with it I had to keep myself from rushing into his room and throwing the cd player through the window!

Johnny likes to sit with me during my "quiet" time in the mornings, so I've incorporated him into it. He sits in my lap and we read Proverbs, a Psalm and are working our way through Daniel. He then holds my fingers and we pray together. It's very sweet and I'm glad for that time. He is so funny about prayer. After he gets in trouble, we pray together and after that all is over and well and the sun shines again. Now as soon as he gets a rebuke and before I can remind him of the "why" he grabs my hands and says pleadingly, "pray, pray."

As for Miss Aubrey Sue (I often call her Aubrey Jean, which sounds like "Aubergine") She is just a darling! If she could speak, she would say, "love me, world and I will return the love!" She is such a social butterfly and any bit of attention lavished on her is returned with smiles and coos and adoration. She is ticklish and we love to hear her giggle. She has been a good, content baby so far. We are getting into a routine with her that works well. Aubrey naps around the house in the morning and goes down in the afternoon in her bed. The evenings between seven and nine thirty are her big awake times, which works out perfectly since Johnny goes to bed between seven and seven thirty. She gets a lot of loving and adoration in the evenings, then goes to bed for the night around 9/10 and sleeps until five or six. What she does with her time between that feeding and Johnny's awakening is beyond me as I go back to sleep after that feeding. Now that she's sleeping most of the night, I'm more tired than ever!

And I'm really going to be tired after this post! I'm going to try and grab an hour or two of sleep before Aubrey wakes up. Thanks to all of you who read the blog--it's encouraging to know folks read it even if they don't comment!