I've Loved These Days

Shopping, wrapping, blah, blah, blah - we're all busy, I'm sure you don't want to hear my bitching about everything we all do to preparing for Christmas. I too, have spent too much time this week taking care of last minute Oh Shit! gifts, racing between the Hallmark store for money holders and Dunkin Donuts to buy gift cards, for people like the landscaper and others who aren't at the top of your gift-giving list, but whom if you forget, will not continue to collect the Matchbox cars Little Man has left strewn across the lawn, even though you knew Cesar comes every Tuesday, and begin blowing them into the hedges as would be his right.

What is making the holiday Cannonball Run a little easier this year is the fact that Little Man is no longer napping. So instead of sitting in my house, cursing the hours wasted that I could have used to buy a case of prosecco for the ladies at the hair salon*, or picking up cookies for the school secretary, I can now pick LM up from school, and immediately hit the road to buy a Borders gift card for the school crossing guard who so kindly points out that #2 is wandering out of the crosswalk into traffic as she stares at her feet contemplating who invented Velcro. In fact, it's been a few months since LM took his last nap, and while I still insist, during the non-holiday season, that he go in for some "quiet" time (in quotes, since it basically sounds like he is dismantling his bed, piece by piece, the entire time), the days of a consistent three hour nap are officially over. And I am sad.

I didn't really write much about LM's move to a big boy bed, or the fact that he is pretty much potty trained. Although, I don't know how trained you can call him if forgetting to remind him to pee results in his saying he has to pee with a baseball sized wet spot in his pants. Those milestones did not affect me as much. Yes, I was a little teary, putting the crib, that has been in constant use for eight years, into the garage to go to my brother and sister in-law's new baby, but this milestone is dramatically affecting the order and structure of our family.

I can't really remember a time in the last eight years that we have not needed to come home in the middle of the day for one of the kids to take a nap. The girls napped reliably until they were four, and after that, were happy to have quiet time that was, indeed, quiet. While it did require some D-Day quality planning, to get five people up and out of the house in order to do anything before returning to HQ to put one of them in the crib, it gave our days a nice rhythm. After a morning spent on a the playground, or at pre-school, a few hours of stillness was just what the doctor ordered. I knew I had a few hours each day to get dinner started, or fold some laundry, and it gave the kids got an opportunity to recharge their batteries before the afternoon. On our beach vacations, we were out of the hottest of the sun's rays, and happy to be so. Winter weekends at home, H and I could do some home improvement, sticking the other two happily watched a DVD, without the searching hands of LM in the tool box or the paint can - and it was nice to know we could also use that time as an additional window for sex.

Now, there is no excuse to come home in the middle of the day. We can go, go, go right through until dinner time if we want to - and this summer we did. The girls had gotten old enough to be annoyed when we had to leave the pool last summer, for their brother to nap, and we very happy we didn't have to so often this year. But, it's not so much the break I miss these days, but it's the feeling of nap time that I mourn. Getting your little one in comfy clothes, pulling the shades as you kiss a tiny brow, little eyes already droopy, a sense of peace descends upon the house. Everyone quiets down. Crayons and other quiet activities come out, or you lay on your bed to read with the other two. The world continues to go on at its break-neck pace, but your family is in suspended time, a bubble of quiet. Then, with muffled sounds, your little one wakes, greeting the wakeful world rosy-cheeked from slumber, smelling of sleep, with snuggles and sighs. Your other children climb onto the bed to listen to you read Guess How Much I Love You, and you all gather your energy to face the afternoon fueled by cups of milk and bowls of Goldfish.

So I will enjoy this new-found freedom, but at the same time, recognize that this spells the end of a certain era in our family's history. We move, almost completely out of our baby days, and into the non-stop world of having three children, not two children and a baby. And while it's nice to have everyone on the same page, I will always look back fondly on that quiet, warm chapter of our lives. As a farewell, I have included a video of one of my fondest wake-ups in my mothering history.**

*"A case????" asks H. Yes, a case. Every person in the place has either worked on my head, or the kids, or gotten me coffee or water. Keep the hair people happy, keep my hair looking good.
**Sorry LM, just as with the photos, the video history of your life is pretty meager.