Quick, before I get Sidetrack'd

Little calls from her bed: “Mommy?” said in that sweetest little voice. I open her blinds and welcome her back into wakefulness. I peer out the window, a large butterfly catches my eye; beautiful yellow and black against green grass and bright red salvia. I watch it flutter by and think of the beauty of God displayed for my pleasure. So many blessings, such joy.

The team at 5 Minutes for Books has created a great new monthly carnival, “What’s on Your Nightstand?”  I thought it would be fun to play along since I usually have several books beside the bed waiting to be read.  In fact, as of this morning, there are 13 books on my nightstand (although 6 of those have already been read or are Matt’s)!  So, here is what I’m reading (sorry, I was too lazy to take a picture)…

The Birth House by Ami McKay – currently reading this one; it was lent to me by my aunt who thought I would enjoy it as it deals with a fictional case of tradition vs. science in the realm of childbirth during the World War I era.

Chocolate Beach by Julie Carobini – I saw this one on several blogs a few months ago and thought it sounded good; I requested it from PaperBackSwap, and, voila, it’s on my nightstand.

The Center of Everything by Laura Moriarty – I came across this book on Amazon when I was looking at Listmania lists that included Peace Like a River by Leif Enger.

The River Why by David James Duncan – I found this at the same time as The Center of Everything.

Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman – it isn’t often that I take a foray into the fantasy genre, but I do enjoy books of this nature on occasion; Matt read this one and thought I might like it.

Velvet Elvis by Rob Bell – basically we wanted to see what all the fuss is about; Matt read it, and now it’s my turn.

My Beautiful Idol by Pete Gall – I’m not generally a non-fiction girl, but Matt said this was a really good book; I’m reading it on his recommendation.

I’ll also mention here that I just finished my first book by Jodi Picoult, My Sister’s Keeper.  I know several of you read and love her books, but for some reason I always thought they were your general chick-lit and, therefore, wasn’t very interested in checking one out.  Let me take a moment to say I’m sorry; I was wrong.  

This is a very good book about a family dealing with a terminally ill child; it portrays the struggles of the family, the bond of sisters, and the potential outcome of a family where the parents focus so much energy on one child that there is little left for anything (or anyone) else.  Ms. Picoult’s writing was engaging, and I found myself being swept into the story to the point that at times I thought I might cry right along with the characters (this is not something that happens to me often when I’m reading).  It also made me think about my own children and how our family might look in the face of a similar situation.  I will definitely have more of her work on my reading list in the future.

So, there you have it; that is what’s on my nightstand.  You can always visit the Bookshelf in my sidebar to see a list of books that I’m currently reading, have recently finished, or have on hand to read in the near future; I try to keep it updated as much as possible.  If you would like to participate in this book carnival or see what other bloggers are reading check out this month’s “What’s on Your Nightstand?”.

There are times when you get glimpses of your children and realize that they might turn out okay.  Such was the time a few nights ago…

We sat in the bathroom floor blow drying her hair after bathtime.  Glancing down I noticed that she sat quietly with hands folded and head bowed.  After a few seconds she said, “Amen,” and looked up at me.  She told me she was praying for her friend and asked for me to pray more.  We prayed as we finished drying her hair, thanking God for her friends, her grandparents, her brother; petitioning God for healing for her great-grandmother; asking God to be with us, watch over us, protect us.

It was a precious moment, a few short minutes of connection with Jesus.  I pray that in 10 years, 20 years, 30 years she still stops in the midst of the everyday to spend time with Jesus.

Saturday afternoon FedEx finally arrived with my new toy.  I am the proud new owner of an iPod Touch (Matt has one, too, because, you know, we just can’t share such things).  It has all the functionality of an iPhone except, well, the phone part, but that is only a minor inconvenience.  Already I’ve used it more than the Nano I got for my birthday (yes, that was only a few months ago) because I can read e-mail, surf the web, check the weather, and post tweets on Twitter.  In fact, about the only thing I haven’t used it for yet is listening to music, but I’m sure it does that very well, too, seeing as how it is an iPod and all.

There are a variety of characteristics that cause one to classify another as their “good friend.”  It may be that she is the one you can talk to about anything and everything.  Maybe she is the one you’ve known most of your life and is as close as, or closer than, family.  She could be the one you would turn to in an emergency.  It could be that she is the one that you call first to share the heights of your joy or the depths of your sorrow.  Or maybe she is the one you can call at a moments notice to watch your children for the ten minutes that it takes to run to the drugstore for diapers.

Yeah, that definitely qualifies as a good friend.  And I am thankful everyday that God has placed her in my life.

A couple of weeks ago the kids and I were doing a little shopping at Target.  As we wandered the aisles of cleaning supplies and paper goods, Little asked for a piece of candy.  I gave her an Ice Breaker’s Sour (her candy of choice behind chocolate) and she began munching away on it.

Behind us a lady was innocently making her way to purchase a bottle of Lysol or something when Little suddenly proclaimed, “Lady no eat my candy.”  I responded with, “No, sweetie, the lady doesn’t need your candy.”  To which Little says, “Lady have no teeth.”

Um, yeah, I’m pretty sure the lady did have teeth (although I didn’t look back to check), but we are always telling Little that Boo can’t eat (goldfish, bananas, candy, fill in the blank) because he doesn’t have teeth.  Apparently this extends to anyone and everyone who doesn’t need/want her food.

And then on Friday…I had the kids at the doctor’s office for well-baby checkups.  As we entertained ourselves with Teletubbies on the TV in the waiting room, a little boy came in wearing SpongeBob shorts.  Little looked at him and promptly proclaimed, “Little boy have fruit snacks on his pockets.”

She’s never been exposed to SpongeBob except via fruit snacks that she shares with her friend D, so I guess it was a logical conclusion for a 2 year old, but it took some effort for me to contain my laughter.

Maybe we should ger her out more…or less.

It would seem that I hit myself with the mommyspoketoosoon jinx when I hit publish on Tuesday’s post.  Tuesday night Boo slept okay, Wednesday night he did bad, and last night he did terrible.  

We shall never speak of his sleeping accomplishments again.

The Boo baby has learned to roll.  He rolled from tummy to back the first time when he was about a week old and has done it a few times since.  About three weeks ago he figured out how to roll from back to tummy over his left side, and he’s been a rolly-poly boy ever since.  Now, when we lay him in the floor, he will roll back to tummy to back to tummy over and over again.  I think he’s glad he can get around a bit.

In other Boo news, we’re still having sleeping issues.  For the last week or so (since starting Prevacid) he’s done better at night.  We averaged one feeding and about three paci retrievals for the first several days, and then this weekend he went down to one feeding and one paci retrieval.  Last night, he slept all.night.long!  It was a very exciting time and would have been even better if Little hadn’t woken up at 3:40 with a nightmare.  Anyway, he’s done it once, so we know he can; hopefully it will become a regular event.

What is the sleep issue you might ask?  Well, he’s decided that he can’t go to sleep easily.  He’s all about crying and screaming to fight sleep as long as possible.  It started Saturday night (while we were out of town, of course) and it took 45 minutes of walking and bouncing while he cried to get him to give it up.  Sunday night was about the same.  Last night we opted to put him in his bed (since he was crying no matter where he was or what we did) and see if he would settle down on his own.  It took him about 25 minutes, but he finally gave up and went to sleep.  We’ll see how tonight goes.

So, we’ve traded one issue for another, but I can handle the crying before bedtime much easier than the up and down and screaming in the middle of the night.  I’m hoping that when we get past the fighting sleep issue he’ll settle down into a good sleeping pattern.  Right now it looks hopeful; we’ll keep our fingers crossed.

Apparently I’m starting a new thing around here; this is my second Friday in a row to post a meme.  I saw this one at Lu’s the other day and thought it was pretty neat.  You plug your answers into Google Image Search and choose a picture from the first page of your search results.  For what it’s worth…

That was fun; now let me know if you play along.

Little is at that age where the imagination begins to blossom.  You never know what she’ll say when a conversation begins.  A couple of recent examples:

A few weeks ago she was telling me about a dog that lives in Boo’s room.  It is little and white and fluffy and likes to sleep in Boo’s bed.  As she was telling me this, she said, “Oh no!”  I asked what she was oh-no-ing about and she said, “Doggie get out of Boo’s room.  Get back, doggie!”

Then today her best friend D was here and they were playing and having a great time together.  At one point they were getting ready to “go” (putting on shoes, gathering bags, etc) and I heard them talking about going to the grocery store and about going to work.  Later this afternoon, Little put on her “troc” shoes and threw her bag on her shoulder.  This conversation followed:

Little: “Bye, Mommy.”

Me: “Where are you going?”

Little: “To the grocery store.”

Me: “What are you getting at the grocery store?”

Little: “Tacdos. Tacdos for Mommy and Daddy and me.”

Me: “Yummy.  I like tacos.”

Little: “Mommy and Boo stay here.”

Me: “Okay, we’ll stay right here.”

Little: “Have a good day.”

There are so many times these days that she makes me laugh out loud. It is fun to see what she comes up with while she is playing.