Butts Passes Out

We stick to a pretty strict nap schedule around here. For one, I think it's good for kids to sleep as much as possible. Apparently, they do much of their growing when they're sleeping (I'm sure I read that somewhere or other--or at least imagine that I read it somewhere), but it also, I hope, gets their bodies accustomed to normal sleeping. If I can't accomplish anything else while raising these kids, I want to pass on to them the kinds of healthy sleep habits that have eluded me my entire life. But another reason that I encourage them to sleep as much as possible is because, well, it's the only time that I get to myself. And I loves some "me time."

As such, it isn't often that they fall asleep just anywhere. Presumably, as soon as they're tired, they're in bed, so there isn't a lot of opportunity for them to doze off here and there. Add to this the fact that Gabe WON'T sleep just anywhere (rarely in the car, even, which can make for some long car rides, and I posted the first, and so far only, time that he fell asleep on the couch), so there aren't many opportunities for cute pictures of them sleeping in unusual places.

But, yesterday, Button supplied me with a cute picture of her in what had to be a terribly uncomfortable position.

The old activity saucer we had--the one Gabe used--was shaped like a car and had a steering wheel and everything. Not having that one anymore denied me the opportunity to colorfully, if unimaginatively, name this post "Asleep at the Wheel." Nonetheless, I did consider "Asleep at the Button," but figured that really wasn't accurate since, you know, she IS Button, so it would be difficult for her to be asleep "at" herself.

There really wasn't any good reason for her to fall asleep when and where she did. She has been fighting considerable congestion and icky feelingness for the last week thanks to the four damn teeth that won't just get it over with, and for the last few days she's been getting to sleep a little later at night and waking up a little earlier in the morning, which is throwing off her schedule, but this happened less than an hour after she woke up from a decent nap ("decent" because she slept for a little more than an hour, and getting more than an hour out of her at a time is about all I can expect).

Plus, she gave me almost no hint that she was tired. She wasn't getting fussy, she wasn't wailing, and she wasn't rubbing her eyes--all of which she's likely to do when it's coming up on nap time. She WAS, however, unusually quiet. As I've said before, she's a talker. Noise of some sort is almost always coming out of her mouth, but for about ten minutes before she nodded off, she was just sitting there, quiet and happy, in her saucer. So I guess I'll have to add "unusually quiet" to the list of possible clues that she's getting sleepy now.

One minute, I turned to look at her, and she smiled over at me. Not two minutes later, I looked over again, and this was what I saw, her slumped over a pile of toys. So I snapped a quick picture then took her up to bed. Ahhhhh. Adorable.