Hey, The Jerk Store Called...

Before my children can nap, they must experience the naptime routine. This involves changing diapers, reading, and singing in a sequence so tightly choreographed that the kids will remind me if I miss a step. It can be stressful, especially when my overtired children start whining instead of asking for things, but it helps them fall asleep.

Before I can start the naptime routine, I must go through the pre-naptime routine. This involves finding their blankets that they drug all over the house, fetching clean diapers, and rounding up three children who usually move in three different ways simultaneously, sometimes more.

Depending on how well the kids hid their blankets and how resilient they are at ignoring my threats to go to the bedroom, the pre-naptime routine can take longer than the naptime routine. That was the case this afternoon when I spent several minutes searching the house for a missing cow blanket. When I finally found it crammed behind a chair, I set about finding the kids. Tory and Abbie were playing nicely in her room. Ian chose a much more cunning place to hide: In his bedroom, asleep on his bed.

I didn’t want to wake Ian since he might not fall back asleep, but he needed a fresh diaper. Off went his pants, off went the old diaper, on went the new diaper, and on went his pants. Not once did his eyes move.

With Ian still asleep, I gathered Tory and rushed him through the naptime routine. After a diaper change and a quick book, I sang while carrying him to the boys’ room. Despite the altered naptime routine, he greeted naptime the same as always: Screaming and flailing. In between threats to Abbie if she so much as breathed on Ian, I sang a little longer and played with Tory a little longer. I couldn’t completely calm him, but I at least brought him down to quiet protests.

I wished him good nap and shut the door on the two of them. Abbie still needed her naptime routine before she’d go down quietly. Early in her reading phase I heard screeching from the boys’ room. A little later in the reading phase I heard two distinct voices from the boys’ room.

I opened the door to their room to discover that, of course, Tory had woken Ian. I didn’t expect the total jerk method he went about waking him, though. Tory had stolen the cow blanket that Ian fell asleep clutching. In dragging it away from him, he had also pulled Ian’s shirt half off while pulling Ian off the bed. When I found them, Tory was happily sitting on the floor with a cow blanket in each hand while Ian sat crumpled beside his bed, confused as to why he was out of bed and cow blanket-less.

I scolded Tory, sent him to bed, redistributed the cow blankets, and wished them good nap. I didn’t hear a peep from their room as I finished Abbie’s book. As I wished her good nap and shut her door, I heard two distinct sets of squawking from the boys’ room.

I heard intermittent squawking from their room for two hours. Most of the noises were curious or bored, occasionally annoyed, but never upset that they were shut in their room. I assume Ian never went back to sleep. I also assume Tory fell asleep briefly before Ian woke him. I can only hope he was a jerk about waking him.