Night Night

It's 9 am. Asher has just finished his cereal, banana, and Cheerios for breakfast and looks up at me and says "Night Night." No, he's not talking about a sleeping gorilla in Good Night Gorilla. No, he's not talking about what he's going to do in about four hours at naptime. He is saying that he wants to go to bed NOW! Is this normal?

In case that appears to be an isolated incident, I got home from work at 4:15 on Tuesday. As Bekah, our babysitter was leaving, Asher said, "Night Night." Thinking that he would surely not want to be in bed long, I took him upstairs, put him in his crib, and turned on his music while I changed clothes.

When Asher was first born, we put him to sleep with music playing every night. This stopped after about 4 months and although the cd player has still been in his room, he hasn't listened to it on a regular basis until bedtime a week ago when he started crying and pointing until I turned the music on again.

After getting changed, I went to get Asher out of bed and find him as happy as the gorilla who is in bed with Mr. & Mrs. Zookeeper. With his blanket in one hand, pacifier in his mouth, and Roo and Roo Roo where he has just tossed them onto the floor, he waves his arms and says "NO NO" when I try to get him out. He continues to bounce around in his bed, rolling over and then jumping up. After 30 minutes, I finally convinced Asher to get up to go eat dinner. Throughout dinner, he continues to say "Night Night."

What is going on? Is Asher turning into a lazybones? Maybe I'll choose to believe that since he has been going to music classes for a month now, his musical genius is coming alive and he needs time to concentrate on learning music.

Pumpkins! Pumpkins!

Last Thursday, we stopped by the Curtis Orchard in Champaign to pick out our pumpkins for the year and to stock up on some delicious apple treats. Asher wasn't too sure about walking around in the prickly pumpkin vines, but he helped us pick out his very own pumpkin which he likes to point out whenever we're outside.



















I guess we've started a tradition. We went to the same Orchard last year and took a picture at the same cheesy picture cut outs. Although Asher is somewhat small for his age, its nice to see he did grow this past year! (I wonder at what age he will have a smile on his face and be looking at the camera?)

Here are my cool boys on the "Cool Bus!"

Asher's Bedtime Prayer

Dear Jesus,
Thank you for bringing Daddy home in time to read me bedtime stories tonight. He is so much fun. I had such a fun time today with my babysitter Bekah and my "cousins" Abby and Owen. Thank you for them.

I am excited to go to mommy's mom group tomorrow and play with the other kids. Please keep them from wanting to go down the slide so I can go up and down the whole time by myself.

You know I really like Winnie the Pooh. Please convince mommy to let me watch Pooh tomorrow and also I pray that she will take me on a walk tomorrow!

Help mommy to be patient with me when I throw my food and need to have lots of time-outs during supper. I just really don't like carrots (or noodles, or chicken, or even my spoon!).

Thank you for my friends and family who live far away. Please let them know how much I love and miss them but that you love them even more!
Amen

Random September Questions

Why is it 90 degrees at the end of September in the year when our air conditioning system broke down after Labor Day?

Why does my son love bacon but refuse to eat other kinds of meat?

When Jesus was a little boy were the parents of his friends constantly wondering, "Why can't you be more like Jesus?"

Why don't those actuaries who grade actuarial exams have some grace and just pass everyone to relieve some of the studying pressure?

How long will Asher love helping mommy water flowers and look so cute while doing it?

Addictions

Here are ten addictions that people in our household have. Take a guess as to who is addicted to what.

1. Winnie the Pooh show
2. Raisins
3. Writing in this blog
4. Eating ice cream every evening
5. Falling Asleep with a Pacifier, Blanket, Roo & Roo Roo
6. Daily Sudoku
7. Fantasy Football
8. Daily Internet Chess Puzzles
9. Saturday morning Coffee Hound ritual
10. BACON

Some of these have become a big obsession lately to the extent that we wake up from naps wanting to enjoy them. Anybody know of a local WPA (Winnie the Pooh Annonymous) chapter?

Wallflowers

I had a flashforward and a flashback this morning with Asher at Kindermusik. It was our first time in this music class and for one of the activities, the teacher allowed the students to have "Freedance." This meant they could move in any way they chose while music played.

The other six or seven kids in the class were having fun swaying, jumping, running, hopping, skipping... and my son was leaning against the wall for the two minute duration of the song sucking on his finger and watching the action. Walter and I predicted this would probably happen, but as he clung to the wall, I imagined him in junior high at his first dance in a very similar position keeping the wall from falling.

Being a good mom, I thought of how I would react to a this type of situation and then had this flashback to my first junior high dances when I spent the evening holding up the wall. I have confirmed with my husband that he too was a wallflower.

Like parents like son!

Kansas City

Over Labor Day weekend, we visited Walter's family in Kansas City. While there, we left Asher with Grams and Grandpa for a night and stayed downtown near the Plaza to celebrate our Anniversary - It will be 4 YEARS tomorrow!

The hotel we stayed at was perfect and the rooms were just my size! Well ok, those are actually called "milk rooms" where they used to store milk in this old apartment building turned hotel, but it makes me look tall, right?

Asher had a fun time with Grams and Grandpa and we got to swim for one last time of the season in their neighborhood pool.

It was a great long weekend away. We had a lot of fun visiting family, but after watching Asher fight sleep for 5 hours on the car ride home, we really were happy to see this.