The Hits Just Keep on Comin'

Gabe has become a completely unreliable napper now. Two, maybe three times a week, I can either browbeat or guilt him into staying in bed long enough for him to accidentally do what his body really wants him to do and fall asleep. But most of the time he just hangs out in his room, making noise, and coming out every fifteen minutes or so to pee or poop or shout down the stairs to ask if it's "waking up time" yet.

At this point, it's worth noting that I recognize it would be easier--and there would be fewer problems with him waking Norah up--if I just abandoned his nap time altogether, let him play downstairs, and dealt with the fact that the only quiet time I will get for myself will come when I have a complete meltdown and lock myself in the bathroom. But I am loathe to give up my Me Time without a bitter, knock-down-drag-out fight. I have also maintained throughout that my kids are not going to grow up expecting the world to bend to their whims. It is vitally important--to my way of thinking, at least--that children learn to keep other people happy. It is, after all, what they're going to spend the majority of their working life doing every single day. Nobody gets to whine and cry and tell the boss they have to poop to get out of doing something they don't want to do. That's just not how the world works. That doesn't mean that my kids don't eventually erode away my resolve (sometimes quicker than normal if my tolerance for whining is particularly low that day) and get what they want, but they have to work a little to get it.

So, in my effort to at least make things more difficult for Gabe as he transitions into a napless world (which just seems preposterous to me--who wouldn't LOVE to take a nap every day and have the world resigned to take care of your every need and deal with all your problems so you can sleep carefree), we're doing "quiet time." In theory, quiet time starts when I put them both up in their rooms (Gabe sleeps in the extra bed because otherwise there's no chance Norah will go to sleep either) and it lasts until Norah wakes up. Since Norah can now nap about three hours, the odds that Gabe will be able to entertain himself quietly in his room for that long without major disturbance is about the same as of having your winning lottery ticket struck by lightning. It also doesn't help that he can't tell time, so I can't tell him to stay in his room until, say, 2:00 (there is a pretty good chance that he WILL be able to tell time before he gets to kindergarten, though, because I show him the clock and try to explain how it works with some regularity hoping to get him to recognize what two hours of quiet time looks like).

But I try anyway. And when he comes down every fifteen minutes, I inform him that he needs to go back upstairs until Norah wakes up. And I repeat that mantra every fifteen minutes until I get bored with it and let him stay up.

Yes, I realize that my Me Time is already non-existent because I'm spending all of it coaxing him back to bed. Yes, I know I'm just wasting all of our time in a futile effort to establish myself as the alpha in our household. But, so far, I haven't given up the pipe dream that I'm the one in charge around here.

But that is beside the point of my post today. One sort of advantage of Gabe not napping is that his mildly sleep deprived brain comes up with some pretty amusing stuff from time to time.

Today, for instance, he was sitting at his computer . . . .

Did I mention that we found an old lap top and gave it to Gabe for the express purpose that he could play games on an online educational site called abcmouse.com? I have to admit, the notion of letting my four year old play computer games sounded like a TERRIBLE idea when I first heard it. I already feel bad enough that my kids are borderline TV junkies (OK, probably no "borderline" about Norah's relationship to TV programming). The last thing I needed was to feel even guiltier that my kid was also addicted to video games before he can even read.

But, I tell you what, we've seen some pretty astounding results from him playing this game. Put aside the basic computer skills he already has (he can work a mouse and perform any of a number of drag/click functions, he's becoming quite familiar with the setup of the keyboard, and he's starting to come to terms with the reality of having to deal with ten year old technology being completely obsolete for doing something as basic as playing a pre-K game on the internet). He's made HUGE strides in learning his alphabet and numbers. Considering just a couple months ago we couldn't even tell if he recognized half the letters of the alphabet, now he not only recognizes them, he can identify most of their sounds, can find them on the keyboard, and he's beginning to grasp basic economic concepts (he wins tickets for playing the games on there then can buy items to decorate his "house" in the game). I'm still not saying that it's the best method out there, and it's almost guaranteed that he's going to be a video game nerd when he gets older, but so far I think the positives outweigh the negatives.

Anyway, sitting at his computer. He had a little sheet of paper that he'd stuck several different stickers on. He peeled one of the stickers off and put it above his lip like a mustache, and then he started to make up and sing a song to me. I grabbed the camera and coaxed him into doing it a few more times (he had to keep using different stickers and moving them around, too, I guess to find the perfect costume). Here's what I got.

I can't understand what he's singing about half the time, but that kind of lyrical styling is perfectly acceptable in most forms of popular music, so I think I'm going to nurture this phase.