The Day Mom Took a Nap

I stayed up until after midnight on New Years Eve just to make sure 2009 left. And then the next night, I stayed up again, to make sure 2010 continued on it's merry march away from 2009. Actually, I don't know why I stayed up too late. Looking back, it was a bad action on my part.

So the next day, I got this novel idea to take a nap. You know, that time in the day where you lay down and sleep for a short time.

After reading a manual on how to take a nap deciding to rest while the kids were resting, I tried the nap idea.

Just as I drifted off, a little person came to the side of my bed...

"Mom."

(I just pretended I was sleeping.)

"Mom."

(I realized then that I really was actually sleeping, so I wasn't actually pretending after all.)

"MOMMY..."

(For some reason she didn't care couldn't tell I was actually SLEEPING.)

"Hey, Mom...."

(I then made a mental note to have the "when-people-are-sleeping-you-don't-talk-to-them" talk with my daughter.)

"What do you want Janae?" I finally asked.

"I have to go to the bathroom," she said, as if that was a good enough reason to wake me up.

Wondering if her passport to the bathroom had suddenly expired, or if there was a sign on the bathroom that said, "Do Not Enter Without Written Permission," or maybe she couldn't remember where the one and only bathroom in our house was, I simply told her to "GO" and laid there confused as to why the. one. and. only. time. I. should. try. to. nap, she would have to interrupt my efforts with a request to use the bathroom.

She pranced to the bathroom, slammed the door shut and soundly locked the door. It was pretty much silent in the bathroom except for a few plops and quiet clamoring around.

"Janae," I called from my bed, "What are you doing?"

"Pooping," she assured me as I heard a metal object land on the floor.

"Uh, huh," I mused under my breath but too groggy to connect the dots between a locked bathroom door, the metal-sounding object on the floor, my 4-year-old daughter and the dragging-out-minutes of her time in the bathroom.

Just then, her wonderful father came upstairs. I groggily mumbled the situation to him when he poked his head in our door and was grateful when he took over. She was soundly sent to bed without any bread or butter and told to stay there.

And I went back to sleep.

TWO hours later (yes, you read that right) I woke up. It had been so long since I felt that rested that I had to re-calculate my whereabouts, name, marital status and date of birth. When I fully came to my senses, a pungent odor filled the air and I could hear some very quick footed children flitting swiftly across the house whispering unknown messages to each other while the walls echoed with their vibrant stampede from one end of the house to the other.

I slowly slipped out from under the down-filled weight of blankets and meandered sleepily out to the land of the living. I stopped in the bathroom and surveyed a stray pair of scissors on the bathroom sink. Scissors on the bathroom sink mean 2 things: Some child has freshly cut hair or some child has freshly cut hair.

The nauseating smell of pickled jalapeno peppers trailed around the house. It was evident the snack had been enjoyed in places other than the dining room table, mainly because I could taste the smell everywhere.

Concerned about the scissors and the peppers, I asked what was going on. My 4-year-old daughter excitedly comforted me with these words: "Oh, Landon is babysitting me Mom!"

For some reason, I didn't feel all that comforted.

I happened to pick up the computer just then and began to examine it. I soon found the computer's 'T' key would not work right and wondered why it was suddenly necessary to pound directly and firmly on that key every time I used it. If I didn't, I had to implement the "backspace" key and re-insert the missing "T" and it was getting annoying. "What did my computer ever do to my kids to deserve this?" I wondered inwardly.

As I pondered this new phenomenon and wondered about the scissors on the bathroom sink, my nose trailed down the offending jalapeno peppers. They were sitting in a bowl under the couch.

Of course. If I was a 5-year-old babysitter, I would totally put pickled jalapeno peppers under the couch too. It made perfect sense.

I then began to question about the scissors, making certain to make no mention of hair. Landon assured me he didn't cut Janae's hair. And Janae assured me she really did cut her own hair this time. She strategically pulled out the lock of hair that was missing the better end of it's length and explained why she needed to do that.

As I tried to wrap my head around WHY my daughter needed to cut her hair, I also tried to rationalize WHY I needed to take a nap. Neither seemed to be the lesser of two evils because the fact is, had I not taken a nap, the hair would not have been cut. Suddenly, my much-enjoyed-nap had become a bad experience.

The moral of this story is that, well... um, I guess there is no moral. Just that it's better to be awake and tired than to be sleeping and not tired.

Sleep, Baby, Sleep

You tiptoe stalkingly to the closed door. Afraid of the non-existent floor boards that are sure to creak loudly.

You peer cunningly through the key hole. Afraid that even the slight movement of your eye in front the key hole is sure to alert the occupant on the other side of the door.

You scan the entire premises of the baby crib through the key hole like a trained detective examines evidence. You see nothing suspicious.

You then take a deep breath, step up sharply on the very tips of your toes and very carefully peak around the barely-cracked door, risking all just to know for sure that the baby is still sleeping.

And he is. Peacefully. Totally unaware of the pains and mental strain you just went through to find out for sure that he is totally unaware that you saw him sleeping.

Non-existant No Non-sense Naptime

Like the torrent of a hurricane and the power of a fierce volcano, the sharp blast of nap time has whipped through our home once again and erupted in wails from our once happy children.

I just don't get it. It can be a perfectly wonderful day that leads up to tearful nap time and it can be a perfectly awful day that leads up to a tearful nap time. The equation here befuddles me.

Today, all three of them were chorusing together from their own respective places in cries of anguish and sorrow, all confirmations of desolately exhausted and tired children. One of the said children was actually not tired but relentlessly fighting the enemy of starvation. Yeah, that 20+ pounds-of-baby-fat 10 month old. He almost didn't make it. We actually had to coax him back to life just in time with that all 9 oz. bottle of milk. Powerful stuff, that milk is. And then he happily goes on to do what babies do best: maintain cuteness while investigating everything in reach, including that dark corner behind the toilet that you never clean since you can't reach it and no body can see it anyway.

In case you think I accept this strange nap time behavior as normal and healthy, I can assure that I have punished the tears, prized the happy-ness and promised both that when nap time is over, we can all sit on the porch swing and drink strawberry "smoovies" and maybe even a walk to the park.

But, all to no avail. I almost have to stop and ask myself why nap time was ever invented and why moms talk about it being a highlight in their day.

For one child in particular that lives in our home, I offered a spoonful of vinegar if they continued to cry. The said child, amazingly, laid in the napping bed and wailed for vinegar!!! She actually wanted it. And wanting it was making her cry for it. And crying was making her want it more. Or so she thought.

Just like every single solitary day that nap time spreads it's venomous entrails to the far corners of our little house and it's incurable wails infect the very fibers of the carpet, just before the moment you think you might decide to start in with them, it quits. The crying is over. Just like that. Zilch. Hush. Peace.

I glimpse into their rooms and find each angelic child in an exhausted heap, mouths open wide in a mid-wail position, sleeping soundly.

And then it dawns on me why I look forward to nap time everyday.

Proof that Naps ARE Necessary

The frantic mad dash that happens around here at nap time is enough to make anyone tired. Except my kiddos. They seem to get hyped and energized by the ordeal and add to the mad brigade as much as they can. At this point, it suddenly dawns on me why naps are so important for kids. Especially my kids.

It usually starts with the baby. I hold his noon feeding off as long as possible so I can put him to sleep after the older kids. I like him to lay down LAST. About the time lunch time is over, he starts fussing for his meal. After a couple squeaks, he's in a full-fledged holler and the whole house takes shape for a catastrophe. Until this point, all was peaceful. But, Alex has officially sounded the alarm that nap time has come.

Then the next step towards total chaos is Janae either insists on going to bed now or else her attitude shows that she actually needs to go to bed five minutes ago. The only problem is that lately, she just starts crying for no reason when we prepare for bed. And she'll keep up the wailing for quite some time. So, now we have the baby squalling and Janae joining in. Who's next?

Well, Landon. Although he's not a crying kid, he does have antics of his own that can be just as debilitating for his character. He's also the first kid I like to lay down because he sleeps the longest. Does he like to lay down first? No. It starts with me telling him to go potty. He insists he just went potty yesterday. I tell him to go and make sure there's no pee left. He reminds me again he got rid of all his pee yesterday. By now, I'm laying down the law and enforcing a trip to the bathroom. He complies, pees like a race horse and then heads outside. I stop him on the thresh hold and tell him to go wash his hands in the bathroom. Thrilled with the chance to play with water, he gladly "washes" his hands.

Meanwhile, The Baby is crying loudly, Janae is crying louder and I'm trying to get both to quiet down. And the bathroom sink is running water. Lots of water.

I get Baby Alex calmed down, send Janae to her room until she stops crying and tell Landon to shut the water off, dry his hands and go to his bed and wait for me. Then, he says he has to go potty. Then he asks for a drink after he gets up from his nap. Then he decides he doesn't want to go to bed and runs through the house wailing at the top of his lungs and landing on the livingroom floor in a tearful heap. Now he's crying. I think his younger siblings are a bad influence on him.

Now all three kids are crying, thanks to nap time. I thought nap time was supposed to be peaceful?

Long story short, Landon gets tucked in bed, Janae gets rational and dries her tears and gets in bed happily (the attitude change is sudden) and I snatch up my sweet little baby and cuddle in my own bed with him. He's squealing with delight and gasping happily in anticipation of getting fed.

The Baby just gets latched on after his heightened expectancy and I hear a door open.

Ugh. No wonder why her attitude change had been sudden: Janae just got the bright idea that's she'd extend the Laying Down For Naps time a little longer and stop with the tears then start later with the Getting Out Of Bed.

So, I get up, ignore the weeping baby and attend to a Janae that decided she would be happy now and not cry. Okay, that's great but you still need a nap, I tell her. She's put back in bed, totally heartbroken that she has to stay there.

Alex who's now dozing gets a good portion of his feeding when I suddenly hear Janae wandering around her room singing, "Trust and Obey." What a fitting song, I muse as I detach myself from The Baby, fully waking him up and attend to Janae's disobedience.

I resume the feeding with the baby and soon hear more sounds coming from Janae. I regrettably leave Alex again go to Janae's room in time to find her streaking around the room naked because she says she peed.

Finally, several trips later, I looked into Janae's room after all was quiet and found her eerily sleeping in her bed with her eyes half open. Obviously, she was so tired she didn't even give herself time to shut her eyes before she went to sleep.

And this ends Day Number 1,976 of nap time at our house. Though the most exhausting part of our day, it definitely is worth it when the house is actually quiet for a good length of time. And stays quiet until Janae gets up. She's always the last one down and the first one up.

How I love naptime! It's my own little oasis in the desert of a long day. It's my own little island in the middle of the ocean of a busy day. Now for a little of my own nap time before little feet plop out of beds and head back out to the great and wonderful sleepless world of wake time!