It is day three of the strike and there is no end in sight. It is with much tears, crying, and whining that the strike is being enforced. Never mind there the one who is on strike has red, weary looking eyes that are rubbed frequently nor that the striking party's bouncing nature, if you will, takes a serious turn south just before the eye rubbing commences. All signs point to a state of fatigue, tiredness, a state that shouts: "I need a nap!"
Being the dutiful, loving mother that I am, I give my precious baby boy some warm milk for the tummy (which I should probably not be doing before nap time because it is just ingraining the whole eat before bedtime thing which I know is not good... but one battle at a time, please), and gently lie him down in his crib. And as I oh-so-gently place him in his crib he arches his back and screams.
As he grows I know that his nap schedule will change. This is a fact that I can accept. I have accepted that he no longer goes back to sleep a mere 30 minutes after waking up in the morning. I can not accept his refusal of the first morning nap when he is clearly tired. What else am I supposed to make of a crying, grumpy, eye rubbing, ear tugging baby boy?
I'm hoping most of this is just related to teething since the little G is has 3, maybe 4 teeth, busting through right now. Tylenol and medicated teething swabs help a night and I just numbed up his gums on the side he sticks his tongue to chew on (it's super cute, btw). Keep your fingers crossed! Well, it's been about 15 minutes since I swabbed his gums and now he is at least lying down and not hollering. He is talking though.
He's saying, "A di. A di. Bwaa. A-dah, eh, A-dah. Da. A-yay."
Translation, "Neener, neener, I'm not going to sleep mom, even though I'm tired. You can put me in my crib but you can't make me sleep. Why don't you come get me out the crib and go to the gym all of 10 minutes away so I can fall asleep on the car ride over."
Really. Yesterday to let me know he was not going to take a nap he screamed and screamed and screamed some more. Between screaming sessions I went in to comfort him and to make sure he was ok (he even got some Tylenol and a teething swab). Nothing. On one of my trips in he had a poopy diaper (I knew the second I opened the door to his room). I can't blame him for not wanting to sleep in a dirty diaper - but I can take issue with him not sleeping in the fluffy clean diaper I put him. Nothing. No sleep, not even close. More weeping and gnashing of gums and some teeth was to be had.
I had enough of trying to get him to sleep, and I couldn't take anymore screaming so I packed my gym bag, grabbed the G man and we drove all of 10 minutes to the gym. He fell asleep on the car ride over. !
! Can you feel the frustration? How is a car seat more comfortable than a crib with a nice mattress? I took him to the kiddie day care and laid him down in one of their cribs but he didn't sleep. He did however get to crawl and play for a solid 90 minutes which led to a 2 hour nap when we got home.
The way this is shaping up he's not going to sleep. He is standing up again. I think I'll load up the car with the Exersaucer and Johnny Jump Up to return to Ryan's former co-worker who so graciously lent them to us. Hopefully he will sleep in the car so he won't be a total grumpy pants at our PEPS (mommy group) this afternoon.
I love being a mom but I do not this fighting over naps business. Why fight a nap? A nap is one of the most beautiful, underrated pleasures in life. I should have been born in Spain so I could enjoy guilt free siestas.
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