Tag: napping

A Watched Phone Never Boils

Leave a comment

Er, rings.

Nap time in our house means Baylor sleeps for approximately 2 hours and mommy scrambles to get as much done in those 2 hours as possible. I can be quite productive – “to do” items are prioritized not only by need, but also if it can be accomplished with the help of my “assistant”. Dishes these days are a toss up. She’s actually pretty good at handing me the silverware and then is totally entertained pushing the buttons – she actually locked out the controls the other day and I had to break out the manual to undo it. Laundry is fine as long as she gets to push and pull the baskets, put the wash into the dryer, push all the buttons and I can fold it on the bed so she can’t pull down the freshly folded shirts. Most household cleaning is doable. She really likes to swiffer, take turns holding the vacuum and makes “ppssshhht ppssshhhtt” sounds while holding the spray bottles of cleaner (because she can’t actually squirt it, she just makes the sound).  But anything to do with the office is a no go – she lllooooovvveeess to type on the computer, whether or not I’m sitting at the computer makes no difference. She climbs into the chair and either wrestles me for the keyboard and mouse or stands behind me and tries to get the headband, hair tie or ear piece away from my head. Not only is it unproductive, it’s also potentially painful.

That said, all calls that I need to make, bills to be paid, blogs to be written and read, emails to be sent, etc. take place between in the hours of noon and 2pm. Most significant are the calls because I’m self conscious about a screaming kid in the back ground, especially when it’s a semi professional call. I try to make all calls of this nature around noon and then pray that the return call will happen before 2pm. Which, it almost never does. As soon as I hear the tell-tale sounds of a baby starting to wake up, I know that phone is going to ring. I try to ignore the sounds. If it hasn’t been two hours yet, I go in and silently rock her back to sleep, begging for just 45 more minutes.

No sooner do I close the door and sigh with relief… the whimpers develop into wails and I close out what I’m working on. Only then does the phone in fact, ring.

 

Nap Time No More

Leave a comment

I knew this day was coming. I’ve been fighting it for months. But apparently now at 17 months, Baylie has won and so she no longer takes a morning nap.

Now, I know all the non-moms are saying “Yeah, so?”. But all the moms are giving me a solomn, sad and knowing nod. Because the end of a morning nap means there is only one nap in a day instead of two. The whole day’s routine now has to be adjusted and new events and activities planned to fill the void left by the lack of a nap.

Even though Baylor no longer needs that morning nap, I still very much want and need that morning nap! Well, nap time any way. It’s at that time I do crazy things like shower, dry my hair and attempt to look like a human, laundry, dishes, ironing, dog washing, house cleaning, blogging, bill paying, connecting with the outside world, etc. And other important things like go to the bathroom without an audience / assistant waiting to pull out the toilet paper for me.

The upside is that with this new phase of circadian rhythm is that Bay is content to entertain herself for longer periods of time. On a good day it  means she will play nicely in her room while simultaneously watching Baby Einstein and without taking a header off of anything. On a not so good day, it means this:

 

 


So farewell morning nap. You will be missed!!

Kids V. No Kids

Leave a comment

When you don’t have kids and have a lazy Sunday morning, you get up around 10am. When you do have a kid, you get up at 6:30, have pancakes, water plants, play in the play house, read books, put stickers on the dogs, have a snack, get soaked by the house, change, have a glass of milk and then go back to sleep at 10am.

You Know You’re a Mom When…

Leave a comment

1. You can tackle almost any house hold task silently. Dishes, laundry, ironing,  vacuuming, mopping, etc all produce some kind of noise. A mom can do all with ninja like stealth.

2. Your purse weighs as much as your baby

3. The contents of your purse would help you through any imaginable scenario from a runny nose to a hungry kiddo to defusing a nuclear missile.

4. You can carry a baby, a purse, push a stroller and a coffee with ease.

5. When you hear classical music, you know which Baby Einstein dvd it’s from.

6. You speak in sing songy voices to adults by accident.

7. You can make a game out of folding clothes, doing dishes and eating vegetables.

8. You know that no toys is as fun or holds attention like a cell phone, keys or a random item in your purse can.

9. You measure lengths of time by nap times. “I got the entire yard trimmed, raked up AND a shower in one nap!”.

10.You have a ridiculously amazing ability to suck it up.

Today makes me envy working moms…

2 Comments

Look, I know I have it amazing, ok? So no snarky “I would love to be home with my baby!!” comments, ‘kay?

Because the truth is, yes, 9 times out of 10, you would like to be home with your kiddo full time. But that 1 time out of 10, you’d rather be at the office and let someone else deal with your earpiercing screaming, klingy, so tired she can’t stand it but refuses to nap, kid. For the last 2 hours I’ve tried everything to get Baylie to go down for her afternoon nap. After the first 45 minutes, I gave up only to have her run around screaming and hitting because she’s exhausted. She even kicked Bear the dog. Not that I haven’t thought about that once in awhile, but he wasn’t doing anything to deserve it so it was unfair (trust me, she has lots of opportunities when he’s being bad to kick him so we need to be sure to praise when he’s not being bad). So I fed her a snack, broke down and gave her a bottle (after no bottles for the last 2 days, arg!!) and no sleepy. But when I release her from her swaddle, she instantly melts down. I bounced and rocked her in her cool, quiet and dark bedroom for an hour – she finally closed her eyes and when I put her down, they popped back open. At this point I would hold her if she would just fall asleep, but noooo. So how am I writting this post right now? Well, we’re all in a bit of a time out. Bear and Travis are in the laundry room having their dinner, Bay is in her crib with classical music on and lots of toys and books and I am writting in an effort to vent my frustration and then off to fold the 3+ baskets of laundry that have been waiting for the last several hours.

Don’t think this is a great solution – there are spurts of screaming, loud and sad “Momma!!’s”, yabbering and even calling for Bear (which comes out more like “Baaah!!” like she’s from Boston). The quiet timeout is going to continue for at least as long as it takes me to finish the laundry. Hopefully by then everyone will be in a nicer place and we’ll all be able to play hide and seek and “Where’s Travis??” in a nice, non dog kicking manner.

If not, the wine opens early.