...my child sold your honor student the answers to the test...

Monday, April 26, 2010

Naps For Everyone!

I think daily naps should be mandatory. A law, even. In which if said law is broken the "criminal" is forced to be locked in their bedroom for 2 hours, with guards on the other side of the doorway, ensuring no escapes can be made.

Im not talking about for kids either. I mean us "grown ups".

All places of employment should allow for a 1 hour lunch break, followed by a 1 hour nap break. Everyone must bring their own pillow and sleeping blankets and lights are turned out in office buildings all over the country.

All Stay At Home Parents should have some sort of ability to take 1 hour, just 1 measly, stinking hour, in which they can trudge up the stairs, crumple on the bed, and pass out without having to worry about artistic murals done in Crayola on their cream, flat paint living room wall while they slumber (oooh tanget.... flat Paint.. WTF people???)

I remember vividly as a child being forced to suffer naptime at my daycare. I hated it. Loathed it! I railed against it like a screaming banshee 3 yr old, giving hell to whomever forced me to deal with such drudgery. And I think back to that time and I want to go back, and talk to my younger self. I want to smack her upside the head and say "IDIOT! DO YOU NOT REALIZE HOW AMAZING THIS GIFT IS YOU ARE BEING GIVEN??? THE CHANCE FOR COMPLETE, UNINTERRUPTED SLEEP, IN THE MIDDLE OF THE DAY NO LESS!!!????? Enjoy it! Stock up! Relish this time to be with your own thoughts, uninterrupted by whining, wheedling, arguing children of your own. Daydream. Relax!!!! Sleeeeeep. For me. For you. You'll miss this. You'll regret not taking advantage of this while you can. Trust me, your older self on this."


I miss naps. I hunger for them. I ache with this longing need that is rarely fulfilled. The only chance I get to really nap (not just lie down with the door wide open, my eyes closed, ears sharpened for any minute vibration in the air sensing impending doom as my 3 yr old, awake downstairs, is inevitably plotting world domination) but really let go of any care and pass out into peaceful oblivion is on a weekend day, and that's only if we have no plans and we're too lazy to make any. Lately, that is not often, having recently moved. And during the week.... well, Ashe doesn't nap. Hasn't since he was 2. Like on his second birthday he just upped and decided he was done with naps and all sorts of things that are called "Quiet Time". Nope. He wasn't having any of it. I was spoiled with Xavier. I fooled him into napping until he was 3 and even then I got him to do Quiet Time until he was 4 and Ashe came along. All I can say is Soren damn well better nap until he's 6 or I'm going to end up one cranky(er) Mama.

I feel that. The crankiness just starts to settle in my bones, if Im tired and on the go all day. I consume pots of coffee, in the hopes of making me energized enough to just make it through... just hang on! But you hit this wall and no matter what you have done to try and stave it off BAM! Your eyelids waver then droop. You start to yawn multiple times. Damn, that piece of floor right there, the only piece of carpet not littered with toys, sure looks comfy...

We would all be doing ourselves a favor if we instituted a law for napping. No, I dont have the mechanics worked out to know how it would be properly implemented with the understanding that all flatpainted walls would also need to be preserved and not graffitied with Washable (hahaha yeah right) markers. I'll leave that to someone else. Someone whos not so tired that their mind works well enough to think of a brilliant answer. Im just little old me, trying to get a movement started. A movement of non movement. Napping.




Who's with me?


2 comments:

hushmama said...

my kids don't nap. haven't since maybe 18 months for each of them. i really think they would skip sleep altogether if they could.
i would sleep for a week..but 1 hour seems reasonable.

Katie said...

The BEST thing about summer time is the napping. I take my monster to fairs, playgrounds, for a llooonnggg walk, and when we come back, we're both exhausted.

During the winter, it's pure hell.

I get you about the murals. Check out my post about my son's "little men". The men are gonna perish soon to new paint though. :-(