Why Kroger rocks

On Tuesday, the day of no nap, Christina and I went to the Kroger out by her to pick up some dinner on the way back from the pool. They were giving away free pinwheels. I picked one up, figuring that if Adam wasn't entertained, I would be.

Adam was thrilled. I didn't take it out for him to play with until Wednesday, since he was having sleep issues, but as soon as I did, he was riveted. I blew on it to make it spin, and his eyes lit up. When I held it out to him, he batted at it to make it spin some more. It's just so cool how something that simple can elicit such a profound reaction.

At my mom's house, having a blast with that pinwheel!

Now I'm off to do something productive!

Nap time

Monday was great! Or so I thought....

It was a normal day, at first. I woke up, got ready for the day, Adam woke up, and a few hours later was about ready for a nap. Now, he is a short napper. I count myself lucky if he sleeps for an hour or more. Typically, he naps for 30 to 45 minutes, but sometimes he wakes up after 20 minutes with that "Hi, Mom! I'm awake now" smile and I know I'm screwed.

But lately I've been trying to encourage longer naptimes. I usually wait until I hear him crying (or talking to himself) to go in, to make sure he's not just "sleep whimpering," and instead of picking him up and assuming he's done sleeping, I offer to nurse him a little. If he still needs to finish his nap, he'll go back to sleep within five or ten minutes. That usually ensures a total nap time of an hour or two.

So I put him down as usual, and half an hour later, he started to fuss. I put him back to sleep, and he continued to nap for another two and a half hours! I was ecstatic! Too bad I didn't take advantage of it and get some laundry done. Instead, I sat on my tush and read blogs. Bad mommy. I did go in to check on him, just to make sure he was still breathing -- just look what I found!

I figured he wouldn't need another nap that day and maybe even go to bed early. He didn't need a second nap, but he went to bed around an hour later than usual. But that wasn't the worst part. He woke up five hours after he went to bed, and didn't go back to sleep at all until a nap late Tuesday afternoon. We went to the pool with some friends, and he usually gets tired with the sun and the heat, and he didn't even fall asleep in his stroller this week.

I felt better after talking to Kendra, my aunt-in-law. Apparently her daughter Zoe (almost 18 months) was a terror the other day after not getting the nap she needed until 3 or 4 hours later. They had to get pictures taken for passports because they're taking a trip to Canada (am I the only person who thinks the need for a passport to get into Canada is ridiculous?).

He had a two and a half hour nap today. Hopefully he won't wake up super-de-duper early again tomorrow. I have a job interview in the morning and need those precious last two hours or so of sleep. Of course, if I'm tired in the morning, it will be my fault, because I'm sitting here typing instead of having gone to bed an hour ago (or more).

Eh. I think I'll remedy that.