On Nap Dropping

or David Stopped Napping and Mommy Lost Her Mind

David gave up his nap this year.  I didn't realize how much of my sanity depended on my children's regular and reliable napping.  I mean, for years I had a good three hours of simultaneously napping children to do with as I pleased....well, to do quiet things as I pleased, but still.......

Without nap time I think I was slowly losing my will to mother.  I tried unsuccessfully filling nap time in with "quiet time," then eventually settled on "special time" for David while the other boys slept....in an effort to, you know, make David feel more special.  That tended more and more often to playing games with him that involved me being a rock or a boulder or some other stationary object while he pranced around me and I lay down on the floor trying not to fall asleep.

Kind of like this, but on the floor....

Mommy needs a break.....or some kind of a caffeine drip IV......

Then one day I had a scathingly brilliant idea while I was brainstorming with Aunt Julia on the phone.....what if I leveraged David's "special time" with the successful completion of a one hour "quiet time" first?

Don't tell the special time police....I'm pretty sure the first rule of "special time" is not to talk about special time....I mean, not to make it contingent on anything......but mamma's got to do what mamma's got to do.   I've now got a good hour with all the children in their respective spots--if not all sleeping, at least being relatively quiet and it.is.wonderful.

And then on glorious days like this one, I check the even quieter than usual quiet time room only to find that--wonder of wonders--quiet time really has turned into nap time and for a few precious minutes I have three simultaneous nappers.

I like to think of it as a quiet time miracle.