Nap Time

Oh, Nap Time; how I (used to) love thee so.

Since our current house is smaller than our townhouse in California, we have the girls sleeping in the same room. At bed time this isn't usually a problem, and it used to not be a problem for naps, either. Lately, however, it goes something like this.

• Read two books, one long, one short. Mari will shout for "Muffin," which is "If You Give a Moose a Muffin." Cim will sometimes argue.
• Put Cim in bed, turn off the light.
• Sing to Mari.
• Stop to acknowledge Cim's demands that you close the door "some" (as opposed to all the way).
• Finish singing to Mari and put her in bed.
• Begin to sing to Cim.
• Stop to give Mari the kisses and cuddles she's demanding.
• Resume singing to Cim.
• Give Cim a kiss.
• Give Mari the kisses and cuddles she thinks she needs again after seeing her sister get a kiss.
• Promise Cim again that you'll close the door "some," with the stipulation that if she leaves the room, it will be closed all the way.


• Leave the room for ten minutes. 


• Come back, put Cim in her bed, and fix the mattress she's pulled half-way off and has been sliding down. Tell her to go to sleep right now.
• Give Mari more kisses and quick cuddles.


• Leave the room.


• Catch Cim in the playroom and escort her back to her bed. Tell her if she doesn't lay quietly and let Mari go to sleep, she'll be in big trouble.
• Empty Mari's crib of the toys Cim has given her.
• Give Mari kisses and cuddles.


• Leave the room, shutting door all the way.


• Wait ten minutes. When giggles get too loud or Mari begins to cry, go and remove Cim from Mari's bed. 
• Take Cim to the corner in the living room, and tell her she'll be staying there quietly until naptime is over.
• Try futilely to accomplish anything you'd had planned, while Cim keeps up a continuous stream of questions and comments from the corner.
• Tell Cim repeatedly to be quiet so she doesn't wake up her sister.


• Decide you're not doing this anymore, and that Cim can just stop napping.
• Listen to Cim beg for a nap from 4:30 p.m. on and cry and/or yell all evening because she's too tired.
• Decide you're not doing that anymore and that the child. must. sleep.

If Cim were physically/emotionally ready to stop napping, this would be easier, but she's not. I've tried putting her in a different room for naps so she doesn't keep Mari up, but then she just gets into everything in that room while I'm in another room. Yesterday it was her dad's shoe polish in our room. Sometimes she'll sleep for the last 40 minutes or so of nap time, sometimes she won't sleep at all, and sometimes she'll fall asleep immediately and sleep for two hours.

But as many mothers know, nap time is a haven, a precious block of time in the middle of the day when you can breathe and actually get something accomplished. 

And that's my biggest problem. I'm definitely not ready to give that up. 

Luckily, this particular post took less focus than working on my book, and thus I can feel I got something done during nap time.