Two words: Nap strike.
For those first couple of days with the toddler bed, you did great. Quiet time eventually ended up with a nap happening, even if a few things got strewn about your room in the process and you fell asleep on the floor. Once you realized the level of freedom you had been granted, though, all bets were off.
We have now removed your baby monitor, throw rug, and humidifier from the room; relocated your bookshelf, diapers, wooden turtle stool, and most of your stuffed animal friends to the closet; moved your sheets from Aaron’s Dad’s dresser to the big dresser in your closet; and Daddy has to move your Diaper Champ into the hallway during Quiet Time, or you’ll drag it across the room, just because you can.
This is causing Daddy a whole world of hurt, since he has to get up with you on Daddy Days (Wednesdays and Fridays) after only four hours of sleep. He really needs that afternoon nap — and, honestly, so do you. By the time Mommy comes home, you look like you’ve been socked in both your little eyes.
Daddy enforced the new “No Nap, No TV” rule for the first time a few weeks back. He said you cried for 10 or 20 minutes that first day, asking for Dora and Blue. Finally, you accepted the situation and decided that you could do other things, like color or play with Tag Junior. When Mommy came home, you asked for Dora and Blue, and all you got from Mommy was, “No nap, no TV.” So we played with toys you hadn’t even looked at in months, especially your puzzles. Honestly, we hoped that the “No Nap, No TV” rule would have a bigger influence on your decision to play loudly in your room instead of sleeping, but it took you a while to connect the action with the consequence. Now you seem to comprehend — you can at least recite the “No nap, no TV” mantra — but it still doesn’t act as a motivator for you to lay down and nap.
We’re still hoping you come back around to naps, so we’ve been keeping your schedule the same on Daddy Days and weekends. You go upstairs into your room around 1pm and stay there until 4pm, whether you fall asleep or not. Every now and then, you do pass out, but just because you can’t keep your eyes open any longer — and usually it happens long after Daddy could have used the downtime for his own nap.
We look forward to the day when you can understand and remember that Quiet Time is for playing quietly in your room: reading, pretending, whatever.
For right now, though, you’re a willful little pistol. Your favorite phrase lately is “My do it!” If given the choice between Connor do it or Mommy’s going to do it, you’ll ever so slowly walk over to do whatever it is yourself, just to have that bit of control.
You can also tell when you’ve made Mommy mad. When Mommy’s face or tone of voice changes, you’ll say, “Big hug,” and stretch out your arms. It’s hard to stay mad at that. Sometimes you’ll even say sorry… but you usually don’t stop doing (or not doing) whatever it is that’s making Mommy upset.
One new activity we’ve been doing lately is drawing. You’ll actually narrate what you’re trying to draw (although it rarely looks like what you’re saying), like Steve or Joe on Blue’s Clues. You don’t stay in the lines so well yet, but you like to color in the drawings that Mommy does for you. You even request Mommy to draw with certain colors of crayons or to draw certain pictures.
You like drawing so much (and in Mommy’s special Hobonichi Techo that Daddy got for her) that I gave you a blank Picadilly notebook to draw in. You’ve filled it up in maybe a week or two — now it’s hard for us to find a blank page to draw on!
From my limited sample of toddlers, you are a champion nose-blower. You can honk your nose like a pro, and you even try to hold the tissue or hankie yourself if we’ll let you (although you really don’t get that part yet).
You haven’t been very sick at all this winter, since you got your ear tubes in the fall. You’ve had a cough for the past week or so, though, and yesterday you had a temp of 100.5°F at “school,” so we kept you home from daycare and made an appointment for you to see the doctor around lunch today. Your eyes were puffy and oozing green ick like they were at your birthday party, and you didn’t eat any lunch at school, and you’ve been totally exhausted (but still didn’t nap at school). Your fever had gone away by this morning and you were feeling a bit peppier, but you still weren’t quite at 100% yet.
The doctor said that you should be fine in the next couple of days, without any antibiotics or eye drops, and that Mommy and Daddy are doing the right things — running your humidifier, giving you honey before bed, all that. (She also said we’re doing the right thing with keeping your quiet time schedule the same, despite you not actually napping.)
So, you should be feeling better in no time, little dude.
