When Cam was born, I was pretty sure I knew what I was doing since I had already been through things one time. The truth was, my world was rocked from the top to the bottom with the new litle ball of madness. Every single day I would think to myself, ‘If I can just make it the afternoon, both of them will take a nap and I can close my eyes, too.’ I was just so dag-on tired. Every day I told myself this and every single day I was wrong. It made me a basket case. Even the days that it semi-worked for 10 minutes I sat down and just stared at the TV or the wall becaue the pain of going to sleep and being woken up was worse than the pain of knowing that you weren’t going to get any sleep. Plus I didn’t want to miss the quiet and the still. My nights were often ruled by this principle early on. It was awful and one of the strong reasons that I have no desire to go through it again. I feel like I pushed on and I survived that period of time.
I am here to document, though, that the time has come when I have two children that nap in the afternoons every day. This has been the case for a few months now, but in the off chance that we decide to add another child to the craziness, I want to be able to come back and read this and know that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Since Cam is down to one nap now and we help him get through the morning if he is a bit cranky and tired, he gives us a solid 2 – 3 hour nap in the afternoons (the vast majority of the time). Even though Caroline is 4 1/2, she still takes a nap in the afternoon or at the very least has ‘rest time’ where she has to stay in her room or upstairs in the playroom until 3:00. There are a lot of times we tell her it is ‘rest time’ and she will still lay down on her own and fall asleep.
All of this is to say, that between 1:30 and 3:00/3:30, both kids are down and we can do what we want! I can take a nap. I can do some laundry (why would I do this?). I can run to the store and get grocery shopping done. I can get some work done. I can catch up on TV. I can take a shower if I haven’t gotten to that day. I can catch up on Facebook or texts that I haven’t been able to respond to all morning. I may even make a phone call. 
Those two hours are a crucial time for my patience. It gives everyone a break from each other, most of us get some much needed rest we need, and allows us to charge our batteries so that we can handle what comes during the four hours between nap time and bed time.
Being a parent is the greatest, most rewarding thing that any human being can do. But I’ll tell ya – amidst all of the craziness, there is nothing sweeter and more beautiful than a sleeping child. And I am very glad I can say that for a couple of hours in the afternoon, I’ve got two of them!
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