Short, mostly unedited: The Nap

Just a little while ago, my Danny boy was saying things like, "I hate this game," and, "I don't want to put that up. It's boring," and, "I am not tired!"

But he was tired. I was tired. And I told him point blank, "I'm going to set the timer, and you're going to rest with me for 30 minutes in Papa's chair."

I got him a cup of Cheerios. I read him Sleepy Time, Olie by William Joyce. Then I snuggled that big five-year-old boy, playing possum until he put his head on my chest and grabbed a fistful of my hair. I realized just how much my boy had grown as he rested on me, how tall since early December, the last time he took a nap. Only after I started to doze did I realize that he had indeed fallen asleep, and all was quiet except the stupid timer going off.

Now I miss him in this unusual stillness. Such is the paradox of a mother's life! We pray that our babies will go to sleep, grow up or become more independent and then are a bit sad when they do.

When Daniel was a toddler, nap time was an ordeal more often than not. I tried to put him down for naps in his bed, reading books and putting on soothing music, sitting on the floor with my back toward him to make sure he didn't try to get up as he often did when I left the room. I would try to be serene, impassive, keeping my voice soft and my reminders gentle, but the longer it took him to fall asleep and the more he tried to play, pull on my hair or get out of that bed, the more I could feel my insides knotting up in frustration. It was not a calming routine for either of us, as I sometimes ended up yelling at him or dropping him back into his bed none too gently. Then if he - at long last! - fell asleep, the stress would ebb but the guilt over our battles would come, and I would bend over to stroke his blond head and kiss his cheek softly, wishing I could pick him up and hold him and that we could always be in harmony with one another.

For all the articles I had read about children's need for sleep, it was only logical to assume they would want to sleep. But it wasn't so, it seemed. I spent months being frustrated every afternoon, praying my son would not give up afternoon sleep at two-and-a-half as his big sister Ella had done. At that period of our lives, it seemed like the whole mood of our day turned upon whether or not the boy took a nap or not. If he didn't, the early evening saw a tantrum apocalypse. I was stressed, because as any mother can tell you, we need nap time, too. If we go without that recharge break for a few days running, we become desperate and throw our own fits.

Of course, when my husband took over naps on the weekend, my little guy went down like magic. I often wondered what I was doing wrong. I would plague my husband with questions about just exactly what were his methods. But when I tried his strategies, I encountered the same frustrations as always. "It's because I'm not Mama," Matthew told me. "He doesn't play with my hair or try to climb on me. It's just Papa." That made me feel even more hopeless about fixing our nap time issues.

Until I finally went back to an old strategy of mine. It was the one I used for Berto and Ana, so close in age that they napped together on either side of me, sometimes kicking each other for invasion of space or giggling together from across the mama divide as I struggled to keep my eyes open reading a book. It was the one I used for Ella until she decided one summer that she couldn't stand to be left out of whatever her siblings were doing. My rediscovered strategy was to take Daniel out of his bedroom and to the rocking chair. I surrendered and ignored the people and books that told me my child shouldn't fall asleep in my arms, because he would become too dependent. Every afternoon I rocked and read to my youngest and then let him hold my hair as I tilted the chair back, and we both closed our eyes. Though he often squirmed for the first twenty minutes, the routine was much more soothing and loving for both of us, and my Danny fell asleep much easier and quicker. Sometimes I dozed off with him, for he was still waking us up a few times a night then. Once I revived, I slid gently out from beneath him to work on household projects, write or read a book.

That is how nap time was for Danny and I until he gave it up at the beginning of December. Today I remembered the old feeling of badly wanting him to sleep, holding him in my arms until he drifted off and then suddenly missing him in the strange quiet as I stroked his hair. I took a picture of my big boy sleeping on that trusty old rocking recliner, the one with the splitting upholstery that has helped all my babies sail to afternoon dreamland in my arms. I wanted to capture the moment, for Daniel goes to kindergarten next year. It may be the last nap he takes until college.

Potty Times, Nap Times...Good Times

Every day, at least six times a day, I hear my preschooler bellow through the house in a most obnoxious way.

"I'M DOOOONE!" she hollers.

She's in the bathroom, and it is never a convenient moment. "Of course you are," I mumble under my breath before yelling back, "I'LL BE THERE IN A MINUTE! I'm in the middle of something here!"

And it's true. I am always in the middle of changing a diaper, fixing a meal, switching laundry, loading dishes, or feeding a baby. Eventually, I must suspend my work, however, and trudge down the hall to take care of her Royal Princess of the Porcelain Palace.

And my littlest, Danny Sammy, won't sleep like he should right now. According to pediatric sleep experts, he is supposed to need 14 hours of sleep, more than half of the 24 hours in a day. Hah! I am convinced this is a fib invented by pediatricians to keep us desperate for their advice. It is a fib just slightly better than the one circulated by doctors about potty training: the one in which they tell you to simply put your toddler or preschooler in a T-shirt and cotton underpants and let them rove your home diaper-free while giving them only water to drink. Your child will have a few accidents (just a few) before figuring out that they really don't like being wet, and the kid will use the potty henceforth (at which point rainbows should magically appear in your home while Beethoven's Fifth Symphony plays).

Let me tell you what really happens, because I've tried this "shotgun" method on three different children, and baby, it backfires. You put your kid in the shirt and special underpants, you give them water even though they're whining for juice, and then you watch and wait for them to cry about being wet. After about an hour, you start splashing through the puddles. That's right. Because they could care less that they're pee-peeing all over the house like miscreant little puppies. I tried this method for two days straight with my oldest, and I cleaned up roughly enough pee-pee to start a koi pond in the backyard.

And the sleep myth is just the same. Has to be, because if babies really needed that much sleep...I mean if they really did...wouldn't they be wanting...in fact, begging to go down for nap/bedtime? Getting you up four to six times a night, wouldn't they just nurse or take the bottle, touch your face and hair and then go peacefully back in their cribs as if to say, Just checking to make sure you're still here Mama. But this is not the way it is for me and my Danny Sammy. He wakes up, has his nurse, pops off in irritation and begins to behave like the Incredible Hulk - arcing his back, thrashing his arms around and growling deep in his throat as if he were going to suddenly burst out of his footie sleeper and start sporting green skin before jumping through the window to go rip a neighbor's car apart. He behaves like this for well over an hour every night while I attempt to bounce, rock, nurse or lie down with him.

And nap times. Huh. Well, I could get him down for a decent nap, I suppose, if I could suspend all sudden noise in our home and had a soundproof plexiglass box in which to put my preschooler with rations of juice and crackers and enough finger paint and play dough to keep her amused for two hours. But these things are impossible...unless you know where I can find a child-friendly plexiglass box? (No? Well, I was just kidding!) And no matter what I do for Ella Belle - turn on the television, give her cookies and muffins, provide her with pounds of play dough or modeling clay, she will without a doubt end up in the hall outside Danny Sam's room with boredom on her mind and a smirk on her face as she slowly increases the amount of noise she's making. I stare pointedly at her and push my finger hard against my mouth, trying my darndest to channel enough miming energy to drive her from the vicinity of the designated baby nap area, but I'm helpless to stop the inevitable. If I yell at her to go away or be quiet, I'll be disturbing Danny Sam myself and only feel more angst-ridden when he aborts his nurse and twists his head with wide-open eyes to examine the activities of big sister.

I know I'm supposed to thank God for the precious time I get to spend with my little ones, and I do! I do! I do! I do! I doooo! Even when I'm trying to push my fingers through my eyelids in frustration. But sometimes a stay-at-home Mom lives on the edge - the edge of sanity, that is. For instance, when, after many minutes of orchestrating ridiculous maneuvers and making plenty of goofy noises and faces, you find yourself pointing at your baby and cackling because you managed to trick him into taking a bite of baby food, well...you know the pressure has gotten to you, my friend.

But, thank God, it's worth it. It's worth it when your baby crawls up to you as you're sitting on the ground and lays his head on your lap and smiles. It's worth it when, after months of jealousy and insecurity in relation to baby Danny, Ella makes her little brother giggle in the car on the way home and then says confidently, "Mama, Daniel's my friend."