I love the part of the day when little Johnny is sleeping. Naps are so lovely when anyone but my husband takes them (but he never gets to, so that's irrelevant). Johnny's naps have been stretching into these wonderful 3-hour-long affairs, and it's so nice for me to have him taken care of for a while, if that makes sense.
So I always give an inner groan when I hear him waking up. I just want him to sleep a little bit longer.
Like yesterday, I had just gotten up off the couch to make Charlie some oatmeal and start the pizza dough in the bread machine, when I heard the croaky-moany wake-up noises of the little one. I hurriedly dumped the ingredients into the bread pan, told Charlie his snack would have to wait, filled a sippy cup with milk, and ran to grab the groaning red-head out of his bed.
He whimpered a little, put his head down on my shoulder, and said "me-ooo-K." We made our way back to the couch while I handed him his precious milk. I sat. He drank. Ten minutes of forced relaxation with a grateful, sweet, quiet, snuggly child on my lap.
Hmm.
Every day when this happens, I ask myself why I bother to dread the end of each day's nap. It just might be the best ten minutes of my day.
4 comments:
I just sat here nodding my head the whole while I was reading. I miss nap time. But let me tell you, school time is really awesome. It's like for those hours of the day you can kind of be something other than a mom. It's a strange feeling. :)
For what it's worth . . .
If I could go back, I'd spend more minutes holding, listening to, helping, smiling at--you get the idea--and less time worrying about what I didn't get done. From where I'm sitting now, whatever it was I didn't do, whatever few minutes I didn't have to myself, none of that matters now, and I'm pretty sure it was less important than I thought then. And that is the absolute truth.
It's true, you need time to yourself. By the way, I have plenty of time to myself now.
I think this is the kind of comment one expects from an older person and just hates to get. Sorry.
I remember a time when I was sitting in a chair holding a little one. I looked out into the back yard and saw 5 year old Jen on the swing with her hair blowing straight back from her head. I thought to myself "I'm going to freeze this picture in my memory". It's brought me lots of pleasure over the years. I wish I'd have done it more.
I totally enjoyed reading this, and he is a red-head?! Lucky!
Post a Comment