My naptitude

So this is sort of a topic for the expanding blog but since it’s more about me than Leo, I thought I’d cover it over here at regular old Writinggal:

For about half of Leo’s life, he’s taken two naps—one in the morning, one in the afternoon. Everything revolves around these two sacred sleepy times so if we go anywhere, I turn into crazed/hurried mommy. So this is me on two naps a day:

11am—Maybe if we hurry, we could run to the bank and to the grocery store just to pick up, like, four things.
11:14 (at the grocery store): I probably should pick up paper towels while I’m here but they’re too far across the store. I’ll never make it!
11:22am (in line at the grocery store): What is this person in front of me doing? What? Does she have a coupon for everything? A coupon for eggs, come on!! They’re like 50 cents! I’ll give you 50 cents if you’ll hurry up! I’m on the clock with this kid!
11:26—(responding to the checker): “Yes, yes, he’s the cutest baby ever. He’s 13 months.” Would this guy stop asking me questions about Leo? Ugh. Now Leo’s waving at him. Great.
11:27—(glance at watch which has a low battery so I can’t tell the difference between 1’s and 7’s). Is it 11:21 or 11:27? Please be 11:21! I won’t know until it changes to 11:22 or 11:28. Darn! It’s 11:28!!
11:31am (walking out of the grocery store): Oh, shoot. There’s the roofing guy. He is such a talker. I’ve got to look down and avoid him. Please don’t see me. Please don’t see me. Yes! Avoided him! I love a successful avoid!
Now I have just enough time to get Leo home for lunch and play before his next nap. Oh, I forgot to go to the bank. But there’s no time!! The baby will erupt!

This week I tried to see how Leo could handle one nap. This changes everything. Now instead of rushing through life, I’m all about killing time. Yesterday I needed to keep him entertained from 6:30am-11:30am. We had a playgroup at 10am so I knew that would help. I also thought I could get an inflatable pool at Target. I figured we could go to Target at 9am, get the inflatable pool and leave there by 9:45am. Problem is, it doesn’t take 45 minutes to get an inflatable pool. So this was me at Target on a one-nap day:

9:15am—Well, I got the pool. What else could I do? Oh, Leo needs more pajamas.
9:18am—Okay, found some good pajamas. Maybe I’ll peruse the lamps. Do I need a new toothbrush?
9:24am—(in line at Target): What is this lady in front of me doing? Why is she only buying a mop? That’s only gonna take like 30 seconds. I need to find a longer line!
9:27am—Already checked-out. Stupid silent checker. He didn’t even wave at Leo or comment on his obvious cuteness. Now what? Oh, I have that Starbucks gift card. I don’t like coffee but I need to use it. And they have an SB here.
9:30am—(at Starbucks, almost done with my light caramel frap): Leo, look! It’s Danny the exterminator. Let’s tell him about our ant problem. “Hey, Danny! Yoo hoo! Over here!” Oh, he doesn’t see me. That’s embarrassing.
9:37am—(glance at watch) Please be 9:37 and not 9:31…I won’t know until it switches to either 38 or 32…come on…38! Yes!
9:38—Well, that was a fun game. Ooh, here comes Danny again. “Danny! Hey!!” Man, is this guy blind AND deaf? How does he catch bugs? Or maybe he doesn’t and that’s why I share my home with a large family of ants.

So as you can see, one-nap-a-day has me changing everything about myself: I browse while shopping, I wave people down instead of hiding from them, I engage strangers in conversation…I might even let someone go in front of me in line.

But as it turns out, I think Leo would like to return to his dual-nap system so it’s back to hurried, frantic, unfriendly Writinggal. In fact, he’s currently on snooze #2 and it’s 2:51…or is it 2:57?