Taking naps and prisoners

I put the little kid down for a nap, though she has yet to fall asleep, twenty minutes later.  In fact, quite the opposite.  She’s been singing, talking, and listening to two different dueling music boxes, not to mention screeching some gibberish at the top of her lungs, all of which is piped through to me via the baby monitor.

So much for my quiet writing atmosphere.

So, I sit here looking around the room.   Without even moving from my chair, I see four books, a baby doll stroller, an empty cardboard toy box, a game with scattered bean bags, four puzzles, a long-outgrown push toy, a mini frisbee, an upside down baby doll plate, an upside down baby doll potty, a baby doll bowl, a baby doll visor and bow, two containers filled with put and take toys, fifty or so toy magnets, a basket of crayons, stacks of half-colored papers, a half-eaten bowl of Goldfish crackers, a toy remote control, a toy shopping cart, a pretend kitchen with baby diapers on the stove burners, a toy boombox that needs batteries, a baby doll high chair, a pretend dishwasher, a face-down baby doll, and about four items that actually belong to an adult.

And now the baby monitor is screaming, “Mama! Mama!” - only thirty minutes into the attempted nap.

It’s no wonder that I feel so uninspired.   Everywhere I turn there is a reminder that I am one thing, and one thing only, a mom.

Just a little bit ago, I watched my neighbor back out of her driveway.  She appeared to be leaving without kids.  It was all I could do not to run after her, latch onto her bumper and let her drag me halfway down the block before she realized I was there and let me get in beside her.

Now I see that the same neighbor’s husband is outside, doing yard work.  The children must not be at home.  I marvel at this for a few minutes.  How does one accomplish such a feat, I wonder? My children are always home!

In fact, I just bit the bullet and opened the forbidden nap time door to see what all the “Mama!” yelling was about.  It seems the little kid wanted me to help her pull her sock onto her hand, a task she could not perform on her own due to the other hand already housing the other sock.

Seriously? This is what my life has boiled down to?   Pleading with someone who is not even a tenth of my age to lay down and close her eyes, so that I can go back and live vicariously through the neighbors out my kitchen window?

Oh sure, I could do laundry, pick up the afore-mentioned littering of toys or sort through the basket of junk mail, but how is that any more exciting?

I need something.  But what?  Excitement? I’m not sure that’s it.  Excitement wanes quickly.  To talk to an old friend?  That’d be nice, but probably a bit one-sided since I have nothing to talk about.  To spend time with Big Kid and appease the left-out feelings of late?  Sure, but right now he wouldn’t take too kindly to me interrupting his computer game.  To talk to hubby?  Yeah right, like he’s going to wake from his sofa coma after working extra hours all week.     To do one of the countless projects I’ve been putting off since the birth of Little Kid?  Most definitely, but seeing as how nap time is short and my attention span for projects is long, I’d only end up frustrated that I couldn’t finish.   So what then?

It makes me realize why so many of us turn to food.  More calories - that must be it!

And yet my bulging belly and lonely exercise equipment tell me food isn’t the answer either.

So, what is it then?

What is it we moms are looking for?

Purpose.  Fulfillment.  Validation as a unique person.

Now I think I’m on to something.     And yet, how do you accomplish something profound in the span of the two hour - or less the way it’s going today - nap time?

And what happens - gasp- when they stop taking naps altogether?

Even as I write this, and know full well Little Kid is on her way to two and a half, then three, I am in denial.  She will take naps until she is thirty-two. 

If she doesn’t, I may start taking them.

I may start today, seeing as how it’s now been sixty minutes and she is not only still singing through the baby monitor, but making the most obnoxious commotion turning her music box to full volume.

There will obviously be no nap today, which means by 6:30 when she truly is worn out, the naughty behavior will begin.   After two hours of dealing with discipline issues, I will be worn out as well, which in turn means no profound writing at bedtime either.

I will remain frustrated the entire day, possibly carrying over in to tomorrow, since I will feel that I’ve had no break at all.

And speaking of no break at all, here comes the big kid, in search of a snack, but first barging in to tell me the full details of something unfolding on his computer game, completely unaware, it seems, of the keyboard at my fingertips, or that I may be trying to concentrate on something.   But as quickly as he blew in and interrupted my thoughts, he is gone again, back to the solace of the basement and Drowsy-Daddy.  Everybody but me is far, far away from the chaos on the other end of the baby monitor.

I think back and I try to peer into the past, before I had kids.   I try to see myself young and full of ideas, dreams, possibilities.  I try to figure out what in the world I was thinking motherhood would be like.   Ah yes, I can picture it now.  I see my young self coming into focus.  And then it hits me.  I know what I will do with my two hour nap time.   I will build a time machine so that I can go back to that younger me and smack myself upside the head.