Silence is golden

As the old saying goes, silence is golden.

I'm nearing the end of hour two of darling daughter's nap time. Lately, she has been having some great naps, which frees up time for me. In the last two hours, I've cleaned up our daily lunch mess, did laundry, watched The View, continued magic looping (a knitting technique) the sleeves of a hoodie that I'm making darling daughter and surfed the Internet. And now I'm a bit bored. I'm just waiting for her to wake up so we can head outside for a walk.

But maybe, just maybe, I should just enjoy the last remaining minutes of the silence rather than twiddling my thumbs, waiting for her to wake up. Because, as they say, silence is golden.

My little Houdinin never ceases to amaze me

This morning, darling daughter was so darn crabby that I had to up nap time an hour earlier. I simply had no choice. It was either watch her continually cry for no apparent reason or save my sanity and put her in her crib for a nap. My sanity won. Unfortunately, when you mess with the timing of nap time, you are playing with fire. In the end, she only slept an hour.

An hour into her nap time while I was trying to catch up on some emails downstairs, I could her stirring. No crying. Just her chirping happily to her stuffies in her room. I was silently hoping that she'd go back to sleep. And at one point I thought she did. But you quickly learn in toddlerland when things are completely silent, trouble is brewing.

Unfortunately for me, darling daughter wasn't sleeping. In fact, she was stark naked, standing in her crib, holding up her wet diaper. If you are an avid reader of this blog, you'll know that I've blogged about past incidents involving a naked toddler and an open up diaper. Including the summer poop incident that prompted a frantic call to Telehealth. Somehow, she wiggled out of her snug sleeper during nap time. Fortunately for me, there was no poop. So now sleepers have been put on the iffy sleeping apparel list. But again, I was thankful that I had no poop to clean up. Some days you just have to thank the small blessings on the road to surviving toddlerhood.

Anti-sleeves and anti-naps

Apparently sleeves and naps have fallen out of fashion for darling daughter.

I'm assuming all toddlers go through a similar stage when it comes to sleeves. Darling daughter regularly shimmies out of hers. It must be a toddler fashion statement. The only problem is that she is stretching the neck line of her onesies. Almost all her onesies now have out of shape necklines. Any hope of using them for future children are nil. And forget resale value. Who wants to buy an onesie with a misshapen neck line?

She likes shimming out of her sleeves during nap times. It entertains her while she should be napping. Ah, nap time. It is on the endangered species list in our household. I can't remember when she had a good, quality nap in her own crib. Darling daughter will occasionally go to daycare. According to our wonderful daycare provider, darling daughter naps. She'll nap for an hour and half to two hours. And sometimes she'll nap in a playpen while children play around her. What the heck?!? These days if I can get an hour nap out of her, I'll be lucky. This afternoon, she napped for an hour. Instead of shimming out of her sleeves, she shimmed out of her sleep bag. I have to say, that was pretty impressive. Nap time used to be my favourite time of day. No longer. My new favourite time of day is 5 p.m. when dear husband comes home and provides me with sweet reprieve.

Days like these . . .

It is days like these that I'm glad that I'm a stay at home mom.

Right now I'm watching darling daughter play with her books and one of the small bins from her trofast unit. And that is fine by me. I've got a major headache, and it isn't from all the snow that is falling to the ground, either. I've been suffering with a cold for the last several days. I'm pretty sure that what I'm suffering from is a cold. It feels different than when I'm battling allergies. Right now I'm thankful that I can breath through my nose, but I wish this horrible cough would take a hike.

The other night I got a grand total of two hours of sleep and last night I got about five. While I more than doubled what I got the night before, I'm feeling pretty exhausted. Add in the fact that darling daughter is refusing to nap longer than one hour a day, and I'm almost to the end of my rope. A two hour nap would feel great right about now.

So before I confuse your or myself any further, the reason I'm glad that I'm a stay at home mom on days like these is that if I only had five hours of sleep, forced to battle the crazy stormy weather in rush hour traffic and work eight hours in an office, I think I'd go nuts. Right now I'm in my usual uniform of lululemon wear. I have no intentions venturing outside. I may not even leave the house for the rest of the week, depending how I'm feeling. Yes, I'm exhausted. Yes, the weather is frightful. But thankfully I'm safe and sound at home, in close proximity to a bed if darling daughter decides to take a nap any time soon.

Someone is going to have a tantrum and that someone is likely me

This one a day nap time thing is starting to become a pain in the you-know-what.

I thought I'd be smart today and delay nap time as long as I possibly could. But I think I shot myself in the foot.

At 12:45 p.m. darling daughter went down for her nap. At one, I watched the hot topics segment of The View and quickly ate a sandwich. Feeling tired myself, I thought I'd pay heed to the old saying of "sleep when the baby sleep" and take a nap. My eyes were closed for 15 minutes before I heard darling daughter whimper. At first I thought she'd go back to sleep. And for a couple of minutes I thought my assumption was proved correct because I didn't hear a peep coming from her room.

Then I heard quiet babbling. I can deal with quiet babbling. But then the babbling turned to cries and then I realized that nap time had come to a crashing halt.

And I didn't even get to have a nap myself.

So now darling daughter is wired. Or wound for sound, as my mother would call her condition. And I'm counting down to 5 p.m. Only two hours and five minutes to go. *Sigh* I had thought that once she transitioned to one nap a day she'd be taking long, leisurely afternoon naps. In my books, an hour nap doesn't qualify as long and leisurely.

I think she is overtired. In hindsight (oh, hindsight you are always 20/20) she should have gone down earlier for her nap. Unfortunately, new routines take some time to establish. *Sigh* But I still miss the morning nap.

Who do I petition to get the morning nap back?

It is official. Darling daughter has given up her morning nap.

God help us all.

I must say we had a good 14 1/2 month run. I've heard on the street that babies give up their naps around the time they approach their first birthday. I'm not too sure how true this is. There is also a nasty rumour floating around that toddlers eventually give up napping altogether. That gives me the shivers. Regardless, the situation I now face is darling daughter is not longer napping between the hours of 9 and 10 a.m.

While darling daughter may not miss her morning nap, I do. I miss it tremendously. I miss that hour to myself. That was the time I would typically take a shower and get ready for the day. Now I'm forced to take a quick shower and hope darling daughter doesn't get too bored playing in her crib and start flinging her toys onto the floor.

By lunchtime she is ready for a nap. Going for a nap time around lunch time has its pros and cons, the main con being she'll be back up and raring to go at 2 p.m. Her previous afternoon nap time was around 1:30 or 2 p.m. So while she was napping, I'd have some leisure time to myself. That three hour period between 2 and 5 p.m. is long. Too long. Way too long. Today I found myself counting down to 5 p.m. Darling daughter wasn't helping matters by flinging her toys over one of the baby gates and into the stairwell below. I even found one of the Trofast bins at the bottom the stairs.

I knew this day was coming, but I was in denial. I'm still in denial. I'm still hoping she'll reconsider and go back to the morning nap. If not, I guess I'll have to adjust to the new reality. So farewell morning nap. You'll be missed.

Encroaching on my territory

Dear husband is sick. He decided to stay home today and keep his germs to himself. God bless him. I hope he is well enough to go to work tomorrow because he is encroaching on my territory.

For whatever reason when dear husband is sick from work, it feels really weird when he is home. I've got no problem when he is home during the weekend. In fact, I love the weekends, especially Sundays as he dedicates this day to watching football. I take that time to do errands, go to the gym or read a book. But when he was home during a weekday, it just feels plain weird. But to be fair, he is sick and was in no shape to go to work today.

And to make things worse, darling daughter refused to nap today. REFUSED. There was tears, tears and more tears. After several separate attempts by dear husband and I, we had to abort all nap plans. Although it was manageable between the two of us, there was no countdown to 5 p.m. to look forward to because dear husband was already home. So basically we had to watch our poor congested, red eye rimmed baby, who desperately needed a nap, walk around the living room all day, playing with her toys. At least she was in a relatively good mood. But having darling daughter skip her nap time made for a long day.

So hopefully dear husband's germs disappear tomorrow, allowing him to go back to work tomorrow. I've come to the conclusion between the hours of 8 a.m. at 5 p.m., Monday to Friday, the house is my territory. And maybe it is just me being weird, but I don't like anyone encroaching on my territory during these time periods. Not even my husband, despite the fact I love him to death. I'm not too sure what we'd do if we ever won the lottery. I guess one of us would be working for fun.

Boo for 1:30 a.m. wake up calls

Right now I'm trying to wipe the bleariness from my eyes because I am so tired. Last night I had an encounter with the Twilight Zone so to speak as darling daughter decided at 1:30 a.m. that sleeping is for chumps and she wasn't having any of it. When her shrill cries woke me up from a deep sleep, I thought it was morning. It is hard to tell these days between morning and the middle of the night as both look the same: dark. I sighed in frustration when 1:30 blinked back at me on the digital TV box. Good God, I thought to myself, why now? Too early.

I thought a quick diaper change would be the cure all, but I was wrong. For three hours she was up. I haven't had an experience like that since she was about seven weeks old. And it was painful. How quickly the mind forgets was a sleepless night is like.

We tried everything. Dear husband tried to rock her asleep. We turned her Orbusforme sound machine on. We patted her back. We put her in a sleeper in case she was chilly. We changed her diaper and we even tried letting her sleep with us. About 4:30 a.m. she gave into blessed sleep. It only lasted for about two hours though. As soon as dear husband shut the front door on his way to work, she was up. Argh! Although she slept for another hour, it was a restless sleep.

So obviously from last night's escapades, I'm not in the greatest of moods. I've got a headache. I'm tired as well as a tad bit grumpy. The hour long nap darling daughter had this morning wasn't long enough as she is now whining I do believe for a nap.

I'm not too sure what caused last night's brief sleep strike. Maybe she is teething. (In this household we seem to blame teething for episodes like this). Maybe she was chilly. All I know is that I'd like this not to happen again as 1:30 a.m. is way too early for a wake up call.

I will excuse myself now as I'm going to put my cranky daughter down for a nap and take heed of that age old advice of sleeping when the baby sleeps.

I'm a slave to nap time

I'm starting to feel what house arrest is like.

I say that jokingly, but at the same time I am getting tired of looking at my beige walls. Getting out of the house was an impossible task this week. I basically have a two hour window between darling daughter's morning nap and her afternoon nap that I can leave the house. For whatever reason, playdates have to fall in a certain time frame in order for me to participate. If they fall in the realm outside of nap time, I take my chances. Earlier this week I thought I could get away in going to a playdate right smack dab in the middle of darling daughter's usual nap time. To make a long story short, I paid dearly for that outing. Let's just say there was a lot of hysterical screaming involved. Although it was worth it for me to get out of the house, I had to cancel our participation at an outing the following day because missing nap time two days in a row was pushing the proverbial envelope.

I would like to say that darling daughter is ready to downsize to one nap a day, but she isn't. Two hours after waking up, she is tired. And despite how small or big that nap is, it is plays a large part in getting her through the day in half decent humour. With that being said, the afternoon nap is essential. If I miss the morning nap, there is no way on God's green earth that I could even contemplate skipping out on the afternoon nap. An overtired baby makes for a headache, make that a migraine, at bedtime.

So here I am, wondering what I should do. We were able to get out for a quick visit at a neighbouring park today, followed by an exciting shopping trip to Shopper's Drug Mart to purchase diapers. And if I am really lucky, I may able get to a body step class, depending on what time dear husband gets home. So in essence, the I may spend two hours away from the house today. I do believe that even people sentenced to house arrest can leave their house for a couple of hours a day.

Oh well, it could be worse. I could be in the position where she isn't napping at all. If that was the case, I'd have a whole different outlook on the situation.

Copyright 2009 -- Valerie McLaughlin -- All rights reserved

Telemarketers raining on my parade

Right at this moment the house is silent. Darling daughter has gone down for her morning nap. It was a struggle. There were tears and protests, but she reluntantly gave into sleep. I don't know why she fights it so, but she does. Anyway, I'm crossing my fingers that she will sleep for a good hour. It seems likely lately how her day unfold hinges on her morning nap.

The only thing that will disturb naptime is a ringing telephone. Other than my parents, dear husband's parents and the odd friend, no one of importance really calls us. However, telemarketers are a whole different story.

I'm not a fan of telemarketers. I don't think there are a lot of people who are. I understand times they have a job to do, but I'm not really interested in listening to the spiel. I find that I can go a month without receiving a phone call from a telemarketer, but then suddenly I'm bombarded with calls for weeks on end. Lately, they have been calling my cell phone.

In the day of BC (before child) it wasn't a problem. I just didn't answer the phone when I saw a strange phone number pop up on my phone's display panel. Now I don't have that luxury. It doesn't matter if the phone ring once, it will wake up that child, resulting in the immediate termination of naptime and me cursing under my breath. I don't know why it has taken me so long to decide to unplug the phone altogether. I guess it takes me a while to clue into useful solutions. So when darling daughter was showing signs of tiredness this morning after breakfast, I immediately unplugged the telephone cord. However, I hope to remember to plug the cord back into the telephone outlet after naptime because I may be wondering why no one, including telemarketers, aren't phoning us.

A wasted day

This entire day is a no-playdate week for me and darling daughter as she is sick. The hacking, coughing and runny nose has taken its toll over the last couple of days. It got so bad last night that I had to drag the futon mattress into the floor of the baby's room and sleep on it as I listen to my child cough and sniffle all night. Obviously, I didn't get a lot of sleep. Dear husband decided to take the day off because he wasn't feeling the best, so him taking time off worked to my advantage as I got in a couple of naps this morning and in afternoon as he watched darling daughter.

I am very protective of my sleep. However, when motherhood calls I must answer, sleep or no sleep. But I was a person who hates to nap. I always throught that naps were a waste of time. Oh, my tune has changed. Nap time, especially when I'm the one who is sleeping, is a great time. But I have never been able to synchronize when I want to nap with darling daughter's sparadic nap time. Since I cancelled all the playdates we were suppose to attend and host this week, I was taking the week to get stuff done around the house. I must say that I did enjoy my naps today. Too bad I didn't get crack-a-lacking on the houseworkThe only chore I did all day was empty out the dishwasher and put a load of laundry into the washer. Making baby food can wait until tomorrow, I suppose. Too bad I didn't have more wasted days. :)