Unfortunate Conclusions

Lately? We've been having nap issues. Nap issues (well any sleep issues really) make me resort to yanking my hair out. (my shower drain can attest to this fact)

Now don't get all rolly-eyeballs on me... the kids had been taking three hour naps. Yes, I know: me = ridiculously and ostentatiously spoiled.

Little Man has put a stop to this utopian lifestyle. The five year olds? They are quite fine with three hour naps, and in some instances, I am convinced they still need naps of this length. So naptime starts at 1:00 sharp- Mommy is tired and wants a break badly by this time of day. In the past few months, Little Man has been spotty on his nap lengths, often rousing by 2:30, 3:30 and at the very, very latest, 4:00. (the optimum hour in my opinion) Mostly a teeth-gritting 2:30.

Naturally, this whole problem eventually made it to The Husband's ears. (I may have been in exhausted tears) He suggested that putting the baby off to bed at 7:00, well this should come to an end; We have a big boy now, and he needs to shed his little baby bedtime.

I did not speak to him for a while after that. (WAH! Not what I wanted to hear!)

Eventually, we stayed up late at Grandma's one night and was not able to get the boy into his crib until 7:45. I realized this was the perfect opportunity for a very scientific experiment... having a later bedtime, would it prolong his daytime nap?

Sadly, the answer was yes.

As of last night, we no longer have that joyful one hour buffer between putting Little Man down and the girl's bedtime. (we used to play 3+ board games, read books without grabby/paper rip-y hands, or just send them upstairs to watch a movie in my bedroom while I caught up on some Mommy shows)

Evening routine. RUINED.

Putting all three to bed at the same time is like herding zoo animals hopped up on speed. I feel like I need a huge butterfly net to be any kind of effective. Pjs are flying here, the girls are running there, Little Man has turned on the bath water all by himself... it's madness.

Hopefully the bonus will be a longer nap in which I can hope to get some things accomplished AND eek in a bit of a rest on the couch with some mindless television, maybe even a plate of nachos. (oh, the dream)