live blogging: sleep school day 1 / nap 2

So, here's the thing.

It's really tough to keep one baby up for no more than two-hours between naps when you have three no-longer-babies that need to get out of the house and play.

I made my first post of the day at around 10:20 but by the time I got shoes on children's feet, noticed Carolyn had a mole on her head as I was combing her hair and then tried to take a picture of it for future reference and discussion with her pediatrician at her next appointment for 15 minutes (why can't I take good pictures of things up close with my new camera? Why have I owned it for four months and still not read the instruction manual?!), called Charlie to discuss the mole with him and freak out a little bit over what is probably nothing but this is why it is SO important that since we live in Southern California where there are no clouds and few trees that the children always wear sunscreen and hats, potty break one ... potty break two ... loaded four children in to the car ... unloaded one for potty break three, oops - false alarm ... and drove to the park (that we would normally walk to but I needed to be expeditious and get home for Henry's second nap), an hour had lapsed.

We played at the park from around 11:40 until 12:50.

During the time that we were there, Mr. Stay-At-Home-Dad with three small children and a dog came to play. I've seen him at the park before and he never talks. He never makes eye contact, never smiles. But today, when his (who I estimated) four-year-old was playing with William, I decided to break the ice by asking if my estimate on his son's age was correct.

It was.

Now, if Charlie had been there, he can never guess a kid's age correctly. Although, to his credit - his estimating ability has improved since he has become a father. But still. If he saw that little boy today, I guarantee he'd guess that the kid was 6. Or maybe 12.

Anyway, he was a really cute little kid and it gave me a glimpse in to what our kids will be doing a year from now. His language skills were excellent and he was extremely coordinated. The triplet's language skills have definitely taken off in the past six months, but unless a person is well versed in three-year-old'ese, they might think that my children are horribly insulting them every time a dump truck drove past.

The other glimpse I had is how at four-years-old, guns and KILL, KILL, KILL appear to be a big thing. Our kids don't know the word "gun" nor do they know the word "kill". Because I'm really hoping to keep it that way for a while, every time the kid shouted "I'm shooting my gun and KILLING that bear!!" I'd yell out "OH MY GOSH!! I think I see a RAINBOW!!!" and take off running in the opposite direction.

There are so many things about three-years-old that drive me fokkelen nuts, but the one thing that I really love about this age is the pure innocence and sweetness. William - the big talker that he is - absolutely slays me with some of the things that he thinks up. Just this morning, while I was pulling laundry out of the dryer, he yelled from the kitchen, "Hey Mom. What are you doin'?" and just as I started to respond, he fired "Do you know the muffin man?" I started to laugh and replied, "I'm not sure. Do you?" And he excitedly answered "Yes!! He lives on Drury Lane!!"

Oh, it makes me chuckle just thinking about it now.

But, without further divergence from the point of this post...

Before we left the park, I nursed Henry in the Bjorn and then we packed up to leave. I could tell that he was tired and had started to doze off, so I loaded up the car and arrived home at 1:00, which was pretty late for us - especially since the kids hadn't yet had lunch.

Henry crawled around on the floor while I washed the kids up, got them fed, read them a few stories while they ate, washed their faces, put them in Pull-Ups (after 1, 2, 3 potty breaks) and got them situated. Everyone was in bed by 1:45 PM.

I put Henry back in the Bjorn, sat down to start this post and he fell asleep while nursing by 2:05. I removed him from the Bjorn, placed him in his crib - he woke up very briefly - and immediately fell back to sleep.

Now, I'm going to run and clean up from lunch while everyone is sleeping. Maybe I'll even fold a load of laundry. Wouldn't that be nice. I'll wrap this post up once he wakes up again.

****

OK, I'm back.

He slept until 3:21. When I could hear him stirring (not crying, but awake), I went in to pick him up because napping for almost an hour and then some is pretty good when you consider he took an hour and a half nap this morning and will take another cat nap in about two hours.

Also, when you consider that I forgot to let William sleep on the couch and didn't want Henry waking up his brother.

Kitchen cleaned. Two loads of laundry folded. None put away. I love folding, deplore putting away. Much like I love painting, but abhor the cleanup.