Being at home with the kids has pretty much been as I expected. They’re driving me crazy one minute, and then amazing me the next. It’s fascinating to watch them think through things, or apply knowledge from one situation to another. It’s not that I never noticed these things before, but being with them more has really just given me the chance to observe it more often. And as corny as it sounds, I think I’m falling more in love with them every day. Again, not that I didn’t love them before, but now I have the time to really appreciate them for the amazing little people that they are.

I know, you think the lack of sleep has finally gotten to me. In fact, Ev is finally sleeping a bit better at night. Truthfully, she started on the road to better nighttime sleep the week that I handed in my notice at work. It’s almost as if she sensed the conflict in me and was soothed when a timeline was finally in place. It wasn’t immediate, but she has nights where she only wakes up once or twice. And has even slept through the night once! *knock on wood* I’ve gotten in the habit of laying down with her after her 4 or 5 o’clock wakeup and staying with her until it’s time to properly get up for the day. At first it was because that was the only way for me to make sure she went back to sleep (and I needed her to go back to sleep!), but a part of me really enjoys snuggling up with her in those early morning hours. My back/neck aren’t enjoying being scrunched up on her bed as much, but I figure it’s not going to last forever. And the bonus is that rather than getting up at 6:20 when her internal alarm used to get her up, she’ll also sleep in a bit until 7 or later.

Snuggles + extra sleep = winning combination.

Although the road to better sleep has not led to better naps. Naps, more often than I have liked, have led to the road. Yup, I’ve been pulling out that magical back-pocket card that most parents don’t want to have to pull out – the “car ride”. It started with the first week I was off, which coincided with our scheduled camping trip and also with an unscheduled heat wave. Since nighttime bedtimes were thrown off by both the excitement of camping and the heat, to make sure that naps happened (and to give everyone, kid and adult, a bit of a respite from the heat) naps involved us driving around in air conditioning comfort. This, unfortunately, may have set a bad precedent. The following week, Evelyn starting resisting her naps and I resorted to car rides a few times. She quickly caught on and now she just says “no nap, car ride!” when I try to start her nap routine. I’m still doing the routine, but it doesn’t always go as planned. Sometimes it’s Ev who just won’t go down, sometimes it’s Abby who sabotages – intentionally or not – Ev’s nap.

While it seems strange to think that Abby would sabotage Ev’s naps on purpose, a small part of me is wondering if that is the case, whether she realizes it or not. We’ve been working towards cutting out her nap for a few months and had her down to alternating days at daycare, but we made the decision to drop them cold turkey when I finished work. I’m beginning to wonder if, rather than ask for a nap when she needs one, she sabotages Evelyn’s nap so that we take a car ride and Abby can fall asleep in the car without losing face (because, really, who doesn’t get tired in a car?)