Any parent knows that a few hours of kid-free solitude is an amazing gift. The quietude of your own home, the freedom to do as you wish, even if that is nothing at all, is the stuff that parental dreams are made of. On Saturday, after spending several hours on a family outing, I decided to give that gift to Mr. Dog. I took the boys to a local coffee shop and met up with a good friend and her son. And while that meeting may have been the precise opposite of what I had so lovingly provided Mr. Dog, that is a whole other story I won't go into now.
As we were walking out the door, Mr. Dog told me, "I might take a nap!" His voice was filled with the same giddy expectation the boys get when I cave to their demands for marshmallows. He knew he had it good.
After a rather hellish outing with the kids, we returned home. The boys went upstairs to find their papa, and found him resting in the guest room bed. Little Dog was fascinated.
"Papa, you sleeping?" he asked.
"Yes," replied Mr. Dog, "I was."
"Who made you go to sleep?" Little Dog continued, knowing that no sane person could ever want to go to sleep of their own free will.
"No one made me go to sleep. I was tired. I decided to take a nap. I wanted to sleep."
But this is like speaking a foreign language to a child who will pinch his own face to keep himself from drifting off at bed time. He was confused by the concept of willingly taking a nap.
"Who told you to take a nap?" he asked.
"No one, I told myself to take a nap."
Little Dog pondered this for a moment, then asked, with more certainty than question in his voice, "Did mama tell you to take a nap?"
Because apparently, in this house, I am the sleep police. Just wait til he's a teenager and the lust for sleep finally kicks in. I'm going to take great joy in waking him up for school every morning.
Pasta ala Fridge
12 years ago
3 comments:
My oldest son would literally poke himself in the eye to keep from taking a nap when he was a baby. So began our ritual of me laying down with him and snuggling him close and we would both fall asleep for 3-4 hours at a shot. Then he would stay up until 10-11 at night so as soon as the 2nd baby was born that had to stop because the baby slept for 20 minutes at a shot whether we snuggled or not. The big one stopped getting naps entirely at age 2.5 to stop him from sleeping all day and ruining any chance of relaxing at night after they were supposed to be asleep.
They are 9 & 7 now and have begun to show the signs of sleeping in late.
Love this post! Also love the kid free time!!
Oooo, I know, I CANNOT WAIT to wake her up early when she's a teenager. I plan to use all of the tactics she uses on me (like tapping on my cheek repeatedly or giving me wet kisses). Mwaaaaa-ha-ha-ha!
Paybacks can be a b**ch can't they. If they only knew we were planning their demise......
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