Yesterday Az the Husband took our two older girls to the park to play. I stayed home with the baby, who promptly fell asleep. I was able to get two book reviews written for my book blog while they were gone, and then they returned, bringing lunch.
But that is not the best part.
The best part is that after lunch, Az took care of the children and let me nap. For three hours. It was glorious.
When I first became a mother, the hardest part was giving up the nap. Oh sure, all the “experts” say to nap while the baby is sleeping, but that is not as simple as it sounds. Maybe the baby sleeps lightly. Maybe you can’t sleep. Maybe you need to do the things you can’t get done while the baby sleeps.
Once you have more than one child, it gets even harder to find napping time.
Naps have become the dearly loved college friend that you only see at reunions. You remember when you were much closer and saw each other every day, but now you are just happy to get a Christmas card and know he’s still alive.
I miss naps.
Unfortunately, giving up frequent naps is just part of being a mom to small children. For a good afternoon nap, I need a job with less responsibility - like a truck-driver or a guard at a nuclear power plant or the vice-presidency. You know, a job where nobody would get hurt if I dozed off.
I am now taking care of my almost 6-month-old grandson three days a week. I have been amused to notice that now, for the first time in many years, I need an afternoon nap. I recall when my four girls were young, I believed that it was proof of the existence of God that Sesame Street was on at 4 PM, always my sleepiest time of day. I always love your posts Veronica, whether they deal with profound truths or everyday ones.
Wow, we both had a three hour nap on the SAME DAY. What are the odds of that happening to two mothers of young children at once? The apocolypse must be near.
I miss naps too. So blissful.
What is this thing you call “napping”?
Moi aussi, I miss napping. I still haven’t figured out how to work them back in to the schedule, even though my girls are older. Now naps are like that golden carrot dangled somewhere off where I can’t quite reach…
I’m preparing to give up the naps - right now, at 3 months pregnant, I could nap pretty much on command, but I know these days are coming to a quick end…
Oh, napping. I love you, napping. I thought I was going to get in TONS of naps this year while the older two were at school but The Baby decided to pick now to stop napping. Tee-riffic.
I’ve always found it really difficult to nap, especially when the twins were napping. Just the sense that my nap could end at any moment made it difficult to get to sleep, but a three hour nap sounds divine!
Ah, naps. I never have been a napper, not even when I had four children in diapers. I am a high energy person with something I’d rather be doing than sleeping.
Still, I remember when I was a kid and would visit my grandparents. They napped every afternoon. I spent the entire two hours of their naps lying on their guest bedroom bed, munching cookies or fresh, green grapes and reading Agatha Christie or Nancy Drew or whatever I could get my hands on from their tiny town’s library.
It was heaven. And if I ever do begin to “nap” again, it will probably be that sort of awake nap, filled with low-brow fiction and green grapes.
Thanks for sharing your nap love with us. It inspired me to remember what naps used to mean for me.
Naaaaaaaaaaaap.
What a lovely thing your husband did for you.
These are the things that hold a marriage together.
I was just talking to the Loved about naps yesterday. I have never been a napper–I used to wake up crabby and headachy. But events of the last couple of months have taught me the value of a well-timed nap and my kiddos are old enough to leave me to it when I need one. Now I’m starting to think of naps as nectar of the gods. Aaaah.
Naps are always #1 on my list of “things I love to do.”
I craved the 1 1/2 hours of nappage when I could get both my girls to nap or have quite time in the afternoon. I needed it to survive.
Now they are 8 and 10, and if I need a nap they know better than to disturb me unless someone has lost a body part!
That Cheney…
I have to sleep in until 8am. Honestly. If I don’t, it is practically guaranteed that I will need a nap around 2 or 3 when I try to convince the kids that “we should take a family nap” which usually ends up with them jumping around the bed while I say, “We’re supposed to be taking a nap!”