My two year old doesn’t have a set nap time. Judge me now. You can call me a bad mom. But she is baby number 5. I am running all different directions all day long. With big kids school schedules and activities and half a day kindergarten throw in the loop, It’s hard. Thanks to the blessing of babies 18 months apart, we’ll have this super fun schedule two years in a row. This is the result. I have all kinds of excuses. Maybe I just haven’t made it a priority this year. No set nap. She sleeps in the car.
I remember the good days. The days when nap time was sacred time. I have the best memories of living in Iowa and enjoying nap time. Getting the boys down and then heading to my favorite spot on the love seat by the window of our little town home. I had a good book, a quilt, some chocolate and Diet Coke. And a couple hours to call my own. won-der-ful.
I especially remember nap time when it was winter. The town homes we lived in weren’t built very well. You could always feel the Midwest winter seeping into the windows and walls. I thought I had experienced cold before living in Iowa. But I hadn’t. It was cold. Bitter cold. I remember one winter I read through every book I could find by Bess Streeter Aldrich. She quickly became a favorite. She still is. The characters came alive to me that winter. It became real to me that strong women just like these characters lived through Midwest winters. In farm houses. In cold weather. With families. And sickness. And had less than I had. And I felt a connection to these characters and felt thankful for my little drafty town home.
Then two little boys upstairs would wake up. My time would be over and these wonderful stories would have to wait for another day.
Those nap times were good.
Nap time now is good.
Not in the same sort of way.
It’s been a transformation.
Nap time now is in the car. I drop off one kid at kindergarten. I come home. We don’t have too much time before we have to head back to school to pick up two more. So we clean up lunch and then we go for a ride. Car rides are awesome. We drive out by the lake. We drive through town. We look for houses for sale just for fun. Sometimes we stop for a dollar Diet Coke through a drive thru. And usually the two year old falls asleep. We then head to the school where, if I’m lucky, my four year old won’t fight me for my kindle too much, and I can sit there and read. He absolutely LOVES it when I read a “real” book, not a kindle book, because then he knows for sure he will get to play games. It works out pretty well most days. It’s still reading by a window….just not as cozy as my old love seat by the window, but it still is a good time to read.
I’ll admit, some days I use my driving/nap time to find new running routes. It’s like a killing two birds with one stone kinda thing. Friday we headed out for our ride and I decided to drive a new route and see how many more miles another couple blocks would add to a usual loop that I’ve run. Then at a stop sign I got rear ended. Just like that. No one got hurt, except my trusty-very-old-van that has been with our family for many many years, and probably needs to be replaced soon anyway. But it makes me a little sad.
I missed my afternoon reading that day.
By the end of the day, I was even too tired to read that night.
So, I had a good laugh when my good friend sent me this after hearing my story.
I’m a crazy lady who drives around looking for running routes.
All for a good nap time,
a running route,
and a few minutes reading.
