Thursday, August 18, 2011

Mission Impossible

Sigh. I finally have a moment this week to sit down and blog! When I began this endeavor, I wanted to write at least every other day, but obviously this isn't happening. But I guess only letting a week go by isn't too bad?

It's been a pretty busy week with doctor appointments and friends and family visiting, and surprisingly, nothing too muddlesome has happened.

Of course you have the typical small potato muddles that occur in daily life, but nothing compared to some of the real doozies I've faced in my mommy lifetime.

But alas, the day came today where I found myself in quite the predicament, and I'm sure many of you have found yourself there as well.

My 3-year-old, Evan, (yes, I know he seems to be the topic of most of my blogs and poor little Oliver is left out, but I'm sure his day will come...soon) has decided not to take naps anymore.

But wait, someone out there reading is surely saying, "No child decides when he/she is supposed to take naps. The parent is in control and that child WILL take a nap."

Au contraire my little friend.

Evan has always been a fantastic sleeper. He slept through the night early. He was a 2 nap a day baby for a long time and then took some terrific one naps -- until  a month after his third birthday.

The kid has energy. And when I mean energy, I'm talking about a firecracker and a personality to back it up. Life is an adventure for him and he likes to narrate his life to anyone who will listen. So one would think that he would crash around 1 o'clock, maybe even 2?

Nope.

So finally today I had had enough. It's hard for me to balance nap time because I also work my freelance writing job during those few short precious hours, plus trying to get everyday "life" stuff done on top of that that I can't get done while the kids are awake.

Oliver sleeps great and went down for his nap and then Evan went into his room for "rest time." I stick him in his room with books and quiet games, and then finally gave in (yeah, I caved) and let him take the iTouch with him to play games on, too. Anything to keep the child in his room so we could all have a break from one another.

The iTouch works for about 5 minutes and then I hear the pitter patter of little feet as he makes his way down the hallway to my room where I am working.

"Evan, it's rest time. Go back to your room."

"I can't mommy. I can't rest, I'm just not tired."

"You don't have to sleep. Just rest. Everyone needs rest time."

He laughs his infectious, but sometimes evil-sounding laugh, and starts running around.

In fact, just as I am writing this, he has made his way down the hall and, "Mommy, please rub my back." It never ends.

This back and forth banter goes on for an hour until I get him to stay in his room for at least 10 minutes, and then I surrender and say "rest time" is over; although it never really ever began.

So, back to the miraculous, yet cumbersome, thing that happened this afternoon.

I just couldn't deal with the back and forth anymore. I hadn't gone to bed until 2am last night and was just exhausted. Never mind that Mr. Sunshine decided to wake up at 5:30.

He came in for what was probably the 20th time by that point and I told him to hop up in bed and lay with mommy while I did my work. He, of course, was so excited and couldn't sit still in bed.

I put my laptop down and decided to lay with him--I never do this. Never. Not saying it's a bad thing, but I just never have.

I wrap my arms around him and tell him he's a hot dog and I'm the bread and he has to stay still. The I proceeded to put "toppings" on him to keep his attention. Remember, he's a mover and a shaker.

That only lasted for so long, so I utilized his expansive imagination for my benefit and said, "Wow, Evan. Look at all of the stars and planets in the sky (ceiling). Oh, there's a meteor. There's an asteroid!"

He totally bought it and then went on and on about what he was "seeing" on the ceiling. I then covered us up with a blanket over our head and said we were in a space ship and if he closed his eyes, when he opened them we'd be in space.

Before I knew it, I was waking myself out of a drooled semi-sleep with my arm fast asleep under his sleeping body.

Success! Victory! I was SO excited. And then, that's when I realized the predicament I was in.

My arm was caught under him, and in order to sneak away, I'd have to do the impossible: slide it out and slowly make my way out of the bed.

Could I do it? Was it a real mission impossible?

I stiffly shifted my head to glance at the bedside clock out of the corner of my eye. If my calculations were correct, we had only been asleep for 20 minutes or so. Not bad. I could do this.

Then my phone started going off with alerts for email. "Shhhhh!" I told it in my head.

Slowly but surely, centimeter by centimeter, I slid my arm out from under him and slowly rolled my body off the bed and slithered to the floor. The whole time the Mission Impossible theme was playing in my head.

Freedom!

It had taken me 10 minutes, but I had done it and done it successfully.

I know you have all found yourself in that moment. The baby or toddler or child is asleep, and then you tiptoe out of the room, so painstakingly careful, only to misjudge the creaky spot on the floor and it echoes throughout the room. You hold your breath for a moment. Every muscle in your body tenses. You think if you don't move, they won't see you. Yeah, right.

I hadn't found myself on a mission impossible in quite some time, so it kind of gave me a rush. I still had it in me.

But alas, as I open up my laptop to start working, feeling confident, maybe a little overly so, the faint babble of Oliver was in the background.

Didn't it figure. The day the unthinkable happened, Oliver would decide to take a short nap, when every other day he takes a 3-4 hour nap.

Well, such is life. And hey, I felt accomplished for the day.

But it doesn't end there. Oh no.

We are currently bantering back and forth, again, for him to go to sleep. A consequence of him taking a nap.

I don't know what's better. Him falling straight to sleep at night without a nap? Or getting an hour of time to myself in the middle of the day.

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