"No Blessing!"

Every night, before B goes to bed, we have a night-time routine.  Discovering that having a consistent bedtime routine was the answer to all our sleep (or rather, lack of sleep) problems when B was around 10 months was what enabled me to return to being a clear-minded able-to-stay-awake-past-eight-o'clock adult.

Anyway, about a year ago, a dear friend of mine (who used to be one of my youth leaders in high school!) passed this book on to me. At first, I just quietly prayed those prayers of blessing by myself in the morning and at night, but with this new year, I decided that I wanted to incorporate them into our bedtime routine.

So after we read our books and Bible story, we have "blessing time." The first few nights, B sat nicely and allowed me to place my hand on his head as I read the blessing for the day. After the first night, he even asked for "blessing." It was all so cute and sweet and adorable.

Over this past weekend, he was having a particularly ornery night. He was being quite the little contrarian. He did not want to read books. He did not want to sing songs. He did not want a Bible story. He did not want green eggs and ham.

Oops. Wrong story.

Anyway, when it came time to do the blessing, he emphatically stated, "No blessing!" and plucked the book right out of my hands and returned it to his bedtime books box.

The audacity of it all caught me off-guard, and I actually began laughing.

Will I ever learn?

B is in a rather comedic phase. He has learned that there are certain things that he can do that will garner laughter, applause, etc. So once he realized that something he does is funny, he will do it repeatedly. Sometimes, he follows up with a fake "a-HA-HA-HA," accompanied by approving nods for himself (even if no one else is laughing).

So ever since that night, when it is Blessing Time, he shouts, "No blessing!" and laughs uproariously.

In other book-related news, B calls this book the "naughty baby book." I mean, check out the cover.

Photo Credit

But really, throughout that entire book, as it chronicles that baby growing up, he is quite naughty. The ending (in case you haven't read it) is lovely, though. I choked up the first time I read it and that was before I was a parent (or married ... or dating).

In the interest of complete transparency though, the last couple instances of the mother rocking her son "back and forth, back and forth, back and forth" (or "backy forf" if you are B) are a bit creepy. Just saying. I won't go into any more detail in case some of you haven't read it. Wouldn't want to diminish the suspense. After all, it's quite long for a children's book.

The third book I want to bring your attention to is Five Little Pumpkins. It really isn't the book so much as it is the little song that it's based on. One of the very first YouTube videos that B really liked was this version of "Five Little Monkeys".  "Five Little Pumpkins" is very similar, so when we first checked it out of the library a couple months ago, he LOVED it.

And we read it over and over and over and over and over...

and over...

During our last visit to the library, he spotted it on the shelf and made a beeline for it. "Pumpkin book," he insisted.

I don't know why. He knows the entire thing by heart (he recites it).

I took a video of him doing it today, but I can't get any of my videos to load online (on Facebook, on this blog, anywhere!). I used to be able to. I don't know what changed.

Sniff.

So instead, I'll leave you with this lovely, out-of-season picture.

Photo Credit

Because we like pumpkins around here.