Hi again,
Someone told me if I had more rest I would have a better blog because I would write it more often.. Is that true? Does posting more often make a blog better? Anyway, I have posted three times this week!
Let's talk about The Nap for a moment. Very important for any parent, but extremely important for the Single Parent.
I have trained my son for The Nap and also for Quiet Time. Now that he is three years old, I'm never sure which one I will get, but both are nice in their own way. Nap is a nap and Quiet Time means there will be an early bedtime. When my son is home with me, mid day goes like this:
Mommy I'm ready for a nap...
I leap up into the air, as calm as can be, thinking what an amazing son I have who is not afraid to be tired. I start fervently praying: Please let this fucking thing actually happen, quickly adding Thank you to show my gratitude to the powers that be.
After all the prenap motions- including the white noise machine, drawn curtains, soothing music, a bottle (Yes! There must be another three year old somewhere who still does this too...?), three books, another bottle!! and hair petting...he pops up smiling: I'm not sleepy!
Well, I sure the hell am! And hence, Quiet Time was born.
He continues: I have a great idea, why don't you lay on your bed reading a book and I will play in my room quietly. He has learned to say this after hearing it from me for a year now. The brilliance on my part is that he now thinks it is his idea! Great, I love reading on my bed, and there will be an early bedtime, so I can read again later! By the way, we now share a one bedroom, so me laying on my bed right over There and him playing in his room, right over There now all takes place in the same room.
Quiet time often consists of 20- 30 minutes of me laying on my bed in the middle of the day- heaven in itself- often rereading the same page in my book, while I occasionally remind my son that I am taking a break and not playing with him. The me laying down part makes it all good. More often, nowadays, I make some headway and get a new page or two read. But today I actually fell asleep! Forty minutes later, (yes that was f.o.r.t.y.) I wake up wondering what I missed! My son tells me without any prompting:
I went pee pee two times while you were asleep.
(I'm not even going to pretend to have been reading).
OK
And look at my knee-- I see a "Lightening McQueen" band aid on it. He scraped himself up that morning, we put a band aid on it before the whole (Momista) Nap went down. He continues: I have a new band aid. And I put it on like this-- shows me how he patted his knee. Before Nap I was so tired and left the box of band aids on the sink at his prompting ...hhmmm.. and Mommy, I tried each band aid on my knee and switched them until I found one I liked.
I peek in the bathroom to see the floor littered with opened band aid wrappers. The entire box of close to twenty band aids has either been pressed into the rug, the floor, or the side of the tub.
I'm so well rested, I just say OK.
And I ate tooth paste.
It's a guarantee that Every Single Time he says he does not need me in the bathroom, he is in there eating his Tom's of Maine, flouride free, silly strawberry flavored, toothpaste. And Every Time I tell him not to eat it. But today I just say:
OK
And I'm ready for a nap.
OK
And then he promptly passed out for a two hour nap after his forty minutes of complete independence. Wow, a win-win situation all around in my book! At the end of the day, (by now it's after 9 pm and he is still awake due to the late nap) once again, I am in my bed praying for him to sleep. I feel my foot being tickled by guess who... He tells me he is not tickling me, but that I have a bandage on my foot. He counts to three and pulls a Mater the tow truck band aid off the bottom of it.
Here is a series of photos I found on my camera, taken while I was sleeping, during Quiet Time today:
XO
Single Momista
Someone told me if I had more rest I would have a better blog because I would write it more often.. Is that true? Does posting more often make a blog better? Anyway, I have posted three times this week!
Let's talk about The Nap for a moment. Very important for any parent, but extremely important for the Single Parent.
I have trained my son for The Nap and also for Quiet Time. Now that he is three years old, I'm never sure which one I will get, but both are nice in their own way. Nap is a nap and Quiet Time means there will be an early bedtime. When my son is home with me, mid day goes like this:
Mommy I'm ready for a nap...
I leap up into the air, as calm as can be, thinking what an amazing son I have who is not afraid to be tired. I start fervently praying: Please let this fucking thing actually happen, quickly adding Thank you to show my gratitude to the powers that be.
After all the prenap motions- including the white noise machine, drawn curtains, soothing music, a bottle (Yes! There must be another three year old somewhere who still does this too...?), three books, another bottle!! and hair petting...he pops up smiling: I'm not sleepy!
Well, I sure the hell am! And hence, Quiet Time was born.
He continues: I have a great idea, why don't you lay on your bed reading a book and I will play in my room quietly. He has learned to say this after hearing it from me for a year now. The brilliance on my part is that he now thinks it is his idea! Great, I love reading on my bed, and there will be an early bedtime, so I can read again later! By the way, we now share a one bedroom, so me laying on my bed right over There and him playing in his room, right over There now all takes place in the same room.
Quiet time often consists of 20- 30 minutes of me laying on my bed in the middle of the day- heaven in itself- often rereading the same page in my book, while I occasionally remind my son that I am taking a break and not playing with him. The me laying down part makes it all good. More often, nowadays, I make some headway and get a new page or two read. But today I actually fell asleep! Forty minutes later, (yes that was f.o.r.t.y.) I wake up wondering what I missed! My son tells me without any prompting:
I went pee pee two times while you were asleep.
(I'm not even going to pretend to have been reading).
OK
And look at my knee-- I see a "Lightening McQueen" band aid on it. He scraped himself up that morning, we put a band aid on it before the whole (Momista) Nap went down. He continues: I have a new band aid. And I put it on like this-- shows me how he patted his knee. Before Nap I was so tired and left the box of band aids on the sink at his prompting ...hhmmm.. and Mommy, I tried each band aid on my knee and switched them until I found one I liked.
I peek in the bathroom to see the floor littered with opened band aid wrappers. The entire box of close to twenty band aids has either been pressed into the rug, the floor, or the side of the tub.
I'm so well rested, I just say OK.
And I ate tooth paste.
It's a guarantee that Every Single Time he says he does not need me in the bathroom, he is in there eating his Tom's of Maine, flouride free, silly strawberry flavored, toothpaste. And Every Time I tell him not to eat it. But today I just say:
OK
And I'm ready for a nap.
OK
And then he promptly passed out for a two hour nap after his forty minutes of complete independence. Wow, a win-win situation all around in my book! At the end of the day, (by now it's after 9 pm and he is still awake due to the late nap) once again, I am in my bed praying for him to sleep. I feel my foot being tickled by guess who... He tells me he is not tickling me, but that I have a bandage on my foot. He counts to three and pulls a Mater the tow truck band aid off the bottom of it.
 |
| McQueen & Mater |
Here is a series of photos I found on my camera, taken while I was sleeping, during Quiet Time today:
 |
| hand close up |
 |
| hand 1 |
 |
| glasses |
 |
| hand with glasses |
Single Momista
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