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!

World's lies

"still there." I want to instead plunge right in with an epiphany of late. You see, I had fallen for the lies of magazine publishing. Silly as it is, I really sort of subconsciously believed for a while that if I could only get my house clean, pictures hung, and things somewhat decorated I would be like those women in the house magazines who stand in their kitchens next to bowls of fruit and fresh cut flowers from their cutting garden and smile adoringly at little children who are eating fresh baked cookies. Of course I would be wearing capris, clogs and perfect hair.

At the very least, I thought that once my house was cleaned (all at the same time), I could at least do other things and have it stay that way. O, futility! Sometimes when I'm done with a cleaning spree, I sit down or sprawl on the couch/bed and just enjoy the wonder of it all. But then I look and see something out of place and I think: "that little mess is okay, it keeps my house from being too clean, too staged." So, I leave it and next thing you know the whole house has gone to pot; much like the wisteria behind our house. And a cutting garden--ha!

Perhaps one day when my children are older (and there are less interruptions), I'll conquer my own lazy personality and have a house that stays neater. I'm sure it can be done now--but it's so stinking hard! Honestly, although I can't stand nastiness, I often would rather do other things than tackle housework and messes. Or, providence will throw a curve ball and everything gets crazy. Or, just as soon as I get started on things, someone needs to eat, be changed, be loved on, read to, disciplined--and that's okay. These days are short and littles ones are more important than pristine housekeeping. And when Tuan comes home and wants to hang out, who could say no to that?!

So, heres my plan: Quiet time, husband, children, people first. Laundry and camp, next, Housework later--although it must be done. Someday down the road, I'll have household help (in the form of paid legals and children) and of course make some forward progress in discipline. Then, I will stand in the kitchen of my clean, sparkling house with flowers from my cutting garden, fresh baked goods out, an in-progress watercolor of Tuscany nearby (because isn't that what all watercolors should be of?) and small children wearing smocked garments will be next to me. Then, I will smile and wake up.

I have to go. Johnny is using the tub-cleaning sponge to clean his hair and licking the shower curtai

writer's strike

I am on a bit of a hiatus from blogging. I have lots to write about, but my beloved Granny passed away last week. Between grieving, visiting with family and in general catching up from a week of no housework, I am lacking in time. I shall return sometime soon.

Stuff White People Like

Stuffwhitepeoplelike.wordpress.com is a funny blog I discovered. (I can't figure out how to link it). Here are two of my favorite quotes:

White people like bicycles: "But there is a special category of bicycles that appeal far more to white women, the European city bike (pictured). White women have a lot of fantasies about idealized lives, and one of them is living in Europe and riding around an old city on one of these bikes. They dream about waking up and riding to a little cafe, then visiting bakeries and cheese shops and finally riding home to prepare a fancy meal for their friends who will all eat under a canopy with white Christmas lights. This information can be used to help gain the trust/admiration of a white woman, especially if you can pull off a lie about how your mother told you about how she used to do all of these things when she was younger."

"White people are under a lot of pressure to like cooking. Everything in their culture tells them that they need to have a nice kitchen and that they need to cook with organic, fresh ingredients to make delicious, complicated food. . . ut, in order for them to truly enter into whitedom, they need to own the holy grail of white kitchens - the kitchen aid stand mixer (right). They will match this mixer to their kitchen’s color scheme and it will make up the focal point. And much like many religious artifacts, it will remain untouched for months and even years, sitting on the counter to be admired as a testament to their lifestyle . . .If you find yourself in a conversation about these things, a good way to say a little but mean a lot is to mention that you “find the consumer models to be poorly built, my friend, a chef, brings me with him to a restaurant supply shop that’s not open to the public. The stuff there is real quality, it’s where I get all of my pans.”
If this is too big of a risk, you should just throw out a combination of these words: “le Creuset, Calphalon, All Clad, Williams Sonoma, and Sur Le Table.” White people go so nuts when they hear these words, you won’t even have to finish your sentence."

Let me know what y'all think! We've been cracking up over this.

Lake House Therapy

Lately, I've been really inspired to re-arrange--mostly because I have space to move furniture around (although I wasn't wholly stopped by that in the old house, it's much easier now). Johnny likes to follow suit--he's always moving his and Aubrey's beds. Lately, House Beautiful, Apartment Therapy and Caroline have been inspiring me. I tackled the "nursery" on Friday and our bedroom on Saturday. It was satisfying and oh, so fun. Re-arranging our bedroom gave me a chance to do some deep cleaning in there of renovation gunk. I posted the photos of the "afters" on Facebook; here's the public link:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=19876&l=42384&id=508132545

I had a lot of fun writing the captions. If you think it's tacky to share what things cost, be prepared to be offended. I love bargains and think it's so fun to share them with others. On our budget, paying full-price is not an option, although I don't think I'd pay full price for anything if it was. Bargains are fun! Tomorrow, we are going to hang "drapes" in the LR in preparation for a properties committee tour.