I’m cooked. My dear daughter is consistently skipping naps, just talking and singing for hours in her crib. Yesterday, I listened to her singing through the monitor … “Rock-a-bye baby on the tree top. When the sunshine comes out, the baby will wake up.” Who taught her that? When I casually asked the doctor about it at her half-yearly checkup trying not to show the beads of sweat on my forhead, she said, “You know, you’re lucky. My son wouldn’t nap after 18 months. She’s going to skip naps more frequently and will soon give it up all together.” What?
I napped till I was five. I have a little report card from nursery school somewhere in a box in the basement that says, “She’s such a wonderful child and such a great sleeper.”
Lolo has been skipping about once or twice a week, but now I am lucky if I get one or two naps from her a week. Eek. I can’t check my email, I can’t fold laundry because she always wants “to help”, I can’t put away the madness she creates in the living room. And, how am I ever going to shop on the Internet again? No one wants to hunt down their new winter coat at 8pm after she’s gone to bed. That’s when you pour yourself on the couch with a glass of wine and a new episode of Flipping Out.
Now instead of eating, cleaning and reading in peace, this is the reality of my weekdays at 2pm … her first manicure.




