Recovery, addiction, and baby gifts

Wow-these past few days have been exhausting! I am a bit of an insomniac (and for those who have asked how I do all I do-that’s my answer-very little sleep) and I have slept even worse than usual these past two nights with Jonny in the hospital. Existing on only sleeping from about 2 to 6 a.m. can start to wear on me. Thankfully Jonny was able to come home today, but he will not be back to his old self for awhile. I hate that he is hurting, and pray he recovers quickly. He is very sore, and can’t do any lifting for about a month. He also won’t take pain meds, although he finally caved and took a couple of advil this evening.

I am trying to think positive. Maybe I will have some really good looking arms by the time Jonny is able to lift things again. For right now though, I am just really really tired.

This leads me to this new addiction I have: coffee. I have always been exclusively a tea drinker, but then Jonny started drinking a bit of coffee here and there. Then he ordered that free Gevalia coffeepot and things began to escalate. One day, I decided to join him, drinking it half coffee, half milk, and only one mug full. Now I am up to two mugs and I think about coffee late in the day when I know I shouldn’t drink it. It’s very strange, this thinking about a beverage. I really look forward to it in the mornings, far more than I ever looked forward to a cup of tea, despite the fact that I have been drinking many cups of tea each day for years. This worries me a bit, but I can quit anytime right? I’ve been addicted to much worse in the past (more than ten years ago), so I should just relax and drink my coffee, right? This isn’t like having a vodka tonic with my breakfast is it? It’s just coffee. Everybody’s doing it. I just ordered some sort of fancy free trade happy coffee from a local co-op. Really looking forward to it. Thursday, I pick it up Thursday. Yes, a little bit excited about that. Oh dear.

So, on to my third topic: I was asked to purchase a baby gift for a friend recently and given a hundred dollar budget. The recipient of the gift already has the basics covered, so I got to choose whatever I wanted. How fun is that?

This new baby will be the youngest of five, so I figured some new board books were in order. They always seem to get beaten up (or should I say eaten up? my babies always chew the spines.)

I chose two titles that were new to me: The Little Train (Lois Lenski Books), and Policeman Small (Lois Lenski Books). They are both so cute with really great vintage illustrations.

The other two are favorites at our house: Mommies Say Shh!, and Good Dog, Carl : A Classic Board Book. Carl is very popular at our house, and has been for about nine years. Even Beatrix can say “Carl.”

While Beatrix doesn’t have this beautiful hand carved bowl and spoon (Bea’s wooden bowls were thrifted), she does have this little bitty mug and she quite likes it. So, I thought these would be nice gifts.

The spoon is just really really cute.

Finally I bought an amber necklace, to help with teething pain (and to look lovely in baby photographs!), and this pretty maple rattle, which is great for teething as well.