Snafu

Things around here have been fairly effed up of late. It’s been stressful, and confounding, and annoying.

And it all has to do with That Baby’s nap.

When we first brought her home, she was a terrible napper. She only did a couple of catnaps throughout the day, and they were at inconsistent times and she woke with a shriek. Then, as she grew, it progressed to maybe 45 minutes to an hour, twice a day, but still she woke inconsolable.

Then we got her down to one nap a day. One nice, long, reliable nap. It was awesome. It started out as about an hour and fifteen minutes, but slowly we stretched it out until it was TWO HOURS. Two hours of BLISS.

Because let me tell you, there is NOTHING useful that can be done in a 30 or 45 minute naptime. It’s just not enough time. You can’t make any headway in the laundry. You can’t cook much. You can’t get a decent amount of housework done. You can’t work out and shower. You certainly can’t sit down and keep up on your blogs. NOTHING. So when the nap stretched out to two hours, I suddenly had TIME. Time to DO THINGS.

And I had time to myself. This is a precious thing in the life of a stay-at-home mom. I had two hours, all to myself, to do whatever I wanted. I was productive in those two hours. I got a lot done around the house, and often, was able to work out too.

But something has changed. I don’t know what it is, but ever since our vacation in January and a particularly nasty molar coming in around that time, That Baby’s nap schedule is completely buggered. I don’t know why, but it is like we have stepped back in time a year. Suddenly, she wakes with sobbing and wailing after 45 minutes. And when I go in to get her, she is EXHAUSTED. She is usually crying and signing “SLEEP!’ like mad. She will wail if I pick her up and walk out of her room with her to get some Tylenol or something, because all she wants is to sleep.

I don’t know what is going on — the vacation is long over, and the molar is in and done — but none of us are happy about this development.

Stinkerbelle is overtired from the lack of sleep in the daytime. I am tired and frustrated and cranky, because my carefully planned schedule is messed up. I don’t get any time of my own in the daytime anymore. My workout is pushed to night time, along with any chores to be done, and any updating to my blog — if I am not just too tired and ready to go to bed (as I have been, as you may have noticed from the sporadic posting and 365 photo posts. Sorry about that.)

Stinkerbelle is also clingy now, because she is tired. So I have a toddler who shadows me and wants to sit on me and climb on me ALL. DAY. LONG. So that doesn’t make for a productive time, either.

BDH had a hard time, at first, understanding how this new development impacts my day. After all, he’s not here in the daytime, so he doesn’t get how our schedules work and what my time means. So I said to him, “You know those days when you are so busy with work that you don’t get to take a lunch, or get out of the office to get your hair cut or run errands or whatever? THAT’S what it’s like.” He understood that feeling well.

But it didn’t really hit home for him until this past weekend, when That Baby would NOT let him out of her sight, and was constantly at him, clamoring to be picked up and sit on his lap and play with him. He was getting just overwhelmed by toddlerness.

So today, as I faced another day of fractured naptime, and I was just losing my shit completely, he was very understanding. But really, there’s nothing he can do except be sympathetic, and there’s nothing I can do except keep going. We can’t figure out what the problem is, and so we are just either going to have to adapt or get used to the new normal.

It’s hard, though. Because as much as kids need a reliable routine — so do many adults. And it’s amazing how a snafu like this can impact your days, and your mood, and your outlook.