Outgrowing Naptime

I believe fully that the two things that got me through the infant stages of our children were Jesus and a routine. 

Both children have been fantastic nappers (maybe they did get something from me, after all) from the beginning. Like clockwork for the past four years, come 1:00 PM they’re ready to rest and recharge their batteries – sometimes for up to two hours!

 

And let me tell you how precious that time is to me. Maybe one day I’ll regret not sitting by their cribs and watching their little chests move up and down. But today is not that day. 

Because during nap time I shut off all toys that make any sort of noise, radios and TVs included, and I enjoy a quiet house. I pay bills without anyone asking me if they can put on the stamp. I catch up on collaborative work without anyone yelling, “Can ya come wipe me already?!” in the background of my Teams videos. I prep dinner without anyone begging for a snack. I take a brief walk outside to check waterers on frigid days or cows who are close to calving without the need to bundle up two tots who can’t keep on mittens. I read my devotions, usually thanking God for naptime. I fold laundry without someone dumping the basket to make it a buggy. On particularly tough days, I just sit in a chair and stare at the wall. 

 

But our oldest is starting to change. 

 

“I didn’t think we took naps on Saturdays,” Caroline recently protested. 

 

“I didn’t think you knew your days of the week,” I responded both annoyed and impressed. 

 

She is beginning to question naptime a bit. Fewer are the days when, without being told it is 1:00 PM, she finds her white blanket and thumb and rests at the bottom of the steps until I carry her up to her bedroom. She’s learned that when she naps the world does not nap. 

 

She came downstairs recently after a brief thirty-minute shut-eye last week. It startled me. 

 

“What are you doing up!?” I asked, like Santa Claus who had been caught setting out presents.

 

“What are you doing up?” she quickly turned the question right back around on me. 

 

“Mommy is working on a grocery list,” I said, still confused as to why she was in the living room and not in bed. 

 

“Can I help? Better get some milk.”

 

“Honey aren’t you tired? You only napped for thirty minutes,” I tried to coax her back upstairs. 

 

“Is that long? I’m not tired anymore. I want to play without Cyrus. So he doesn’t run through my horse arena with his combine.”

 

I just sighed. I knew this battle was lost. “When you’re my age you’re going to wish you’d taken a longer nap,” I told her as I sat down on the floor with her and began helping her line up horses for the carpet rodeo. 

 

“But I’ll be 100 years old then and it won’t matter,” she responded, gently setting down her favorite Pinto. 

 

I didn’t have much to say after that and decided to just enjoy that quiet playtime while I could. Though if she thinks I’m pushing 100, I would like to know how old she thinks her grandmothers are.