The Oddities of Parenthood

Last weekend Nate and I noticed that it was getting really difficult to put Abby down for her morning nap. She'd go down great for the second afternoon nap, but that morning one was getting pushed later and later into the day, it was shortening from an hour and a half to around twenty minutes, and getting Abby to actually go down without a fight was getting harder and harder. So on Monday I decided to start forgoing the set morning nap and just focus on an afternoon nap.

I was hesitant about doing this, however. I liked having my morning and afternoon recharging times. I really worried that by forgoing that morning nap/recharge I'd, well, be a bad mom with a short fuse who desperately clung to the "just a few more hours" mentality throughout the day. But once again parenthood reaffirms how little I know. :-) This morning I was all set for some outings to keep Abby up and going until the afternoon nap time. Instead, she made it VERY apparent about two and a half hours after waking up that she NEEDED a morning nap and wasn't going to take no for an answer. So I put her down and went back to cleaning the house. After about thirty minutes I realized that I was actually a little bummed she went down because I was so looking forward to getting out and doing stuff! These last few days have been really fun in the mornings where we've been able to go on walks, go running, play in the park, run errands, see family and friends, etc. I didn't realize how freeing it is to not need to be home every three hours. Plus, I'm really enjoying the time with Abby. With needing both a morning and afternoon nap we tended not to travel too far from home and sometimes home can get really boring. :-) Once again I'm shown that I don't know everything there is to know about being a parent and that every stage of Abby's development has fun things in store for me!