I am blessed with 2 children who nap. And they do it well. Most of the time. Now that I think about it: I had a significant impact on that blessing. Fairly quickly after Kai's arrival 3 years ago, I made sure to have a routine going. It was one of my major focuses and it paid off. From a young age on, he has been able to fall asleep by himself, sleep in his own bed and put himself back to sleep if he wakes up. This past year there were certainly periods of time that he refused to nap, but the rule of "I don't care whether you sleep or not. It's quiet time and you spend it in your room", is still working. These days he's napping like a champ, which gives Mommy 3 hours in the afternoon to get work around the house done.
Once Ryder arrived, one of my goals was to get him to adapt the schedule that we were on as quickly as possible and that too worked. These days both kids nap from 1-4pm and it's magic.
As I mentioned, last year Kai went through a phase of not wanting to nap, but he happily entertained himself in his room. Fine by me, though every day I was hoping that he would go back to napping, simply because he would be cranky a terror, during that last part of the day before bed time.
And then it happened... It was one beautiful October afternoon: the first afternoon of silence. Oh, how magical that was. Someone was answering my prayers. At least...that's what I was allowed to believe for 3 hours. Then...4pm came around and like clockwork, the door opened and there he stood. Triumphantly. With a big grin on his face:
My heart skipped a beat as I took a closer look:
As I became terrified of what else had been decorated, I at the same time had the hardest time not to burst out laughing. My precious, happy bubble had been burst with a triumphant "TaDaaa!" and I realized that we were a loooong way out from napping again. At the same time a voice in the back of my head started the interrogation on why I had been so ignorant to not put the markers away. Sigh.
I gathered up all the courage that had been scattered into hardly detectable, tiny pieces, took a VERY DEEP breath and entered the Lion's Den (aka Kai's domain). And there it was, his bed:
And the floor:
[Sigh] [Another sigh] [Count to 10] [Try not to laugh]
This was the moment. The moment to test if the "Washable" in "Washable Markers" really meant It-Comes-Out "Washable".
Well, it certainly came off my toddler:
And yes, it came off the floor, off the bed, and out of the sheets.
It took a bit longer before my precious, happy bubble got restored, but it eventually did and these days we are yet again blessed with good naps and happy children.
Long may this continue.
3 comments:
Wow, he was busy!!! Love those pictures. Such an artist! He must have been very proud. Glad it all came out. Glad they nap again. I live for naps.
Um, at least he quietly colored his room!?! LOL... at least it all came out and I bet that was the last time you left the markers out during nap time!
When my girl was about 2 and a half and we moved her into a toddler bed she one day decided that naps were for chumps and proceeded to open every single bottle of lotion, bum cream, travel shampoo bottle she could find out onto her carpet and go SWIMMING in it. She was silent, I had no clue she wasn't asleep. I walked in there at 4pm and all I could do was laugh. There are still stains from the vaseline in her carpet.
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