Wednesday, October 3, 2012

Mystery of the Nap Time Mess - CSI Mom Investigates

Hey gang! I am currently writing my key-note address for the National Coming Out Day Brunch sponsored by The Utah Pride Center. They have kindly asked me to come speak about my post, Dear Hypothetically Gay Son. So, on Sunday at 11 I'll be coming out in support of my LGBT friends and family! No matter where you are, I hope you'll join me in doing the same. I'll post a full version of what I say sometime next week. In the meantime, here is a post from my awesome wife about a cute habit The Duchess has formed. 

Love, Dad 



I (Mom) clean The Duchess's room every day. Sometimes she helps, sometimes I do it when she's not home. But this is generally the way it looks when it's clean:



Now let's fast-forward approximately 2.5 hours, after she wakes up from a nap:



To the untrained eye, this may look like a room that a toddler had some sort of tantrum in. You are probably thinking "man, this kid hates taking naps and takes it out on her poor room! She must have been in there for hours just throwing things around!"


You'd think that. But you'd be wrong. Let's take a closer look, shall we?

Here is where all of my years of watching CSI come in handy. 

I know this wasn't a tantrum or a toddler boredom session because there are still things on the shelf. Aside from the one book, all of her reading material is still where it should be. How many books do you know that have survived an actual tantrum? The diaper genie is still upright and the wipes haven't been emptied from their pack. It's all just blankets. And though you can't see it, there is still a bottle of baby powder intact. There have been a couple times that we've walked in on the The Duchess reenacting a scene from Scarface when she's gotten hold of that baby powder. You know which one...


All of these blankets came from a bin where they were previously folded in a very particular way. Not because I'm OCD, I just like things to be orderly... and by orderly I mean folded in half length-wise once, then the other way, then once more length wise. Then, of course, they should also stacked according to size and by material. That's how everyone does it; right? Now, my perfectly folded blankets are seemingly strewn about haphazardly on the floor. Or are they? Let's take a look at blanket #1 here. See it yet?



Let's take a look underneath. Yep, like The Duchess herself, this little guy has been laid down for a nap. 


Let's peek under a few other blankets.







After I lay The Duchess down and leave the room, she proceeds to lay down all her little friends for their respective naps. The trouble is, she has far more blankets than animal friends. So she starts to get creative. 


Observe:



Night night shoe!


Night night hat!

Night night block! 

Yes, that is a shoe, a hat and a block, that have all been gently laid down for nap time. Under blankets. Ya know, in case they get cold.


Kind of makes this scene a little cuter when you look again, doesn't it?



So I can never be mad when I go in to get her from a nap and walk in on this. Sure, I could move all of her blankets into another room or store them higher so they're out of reach. But why would I do that? The two minutes it takes every day to re-fold them perfectly and put them in their proper order (ok...maybe a little longer than 2 minutes) is worth the mental image of her putting all of them to bed like this. 

And most of all, I will take this little ritual over a screaming anti-nap two-year-old any day. 

What about you? What funny little quirks do your offspring have? Putting animals to bed? Insisting on feeding real cheese to her fake dolls? The need to sing every song they know before bed? Let me know in the comments!

Love, 

Mom


27 comments:

  1. I just recently started reading this blog and absolutely love it but this post just melted my heart. Absolutely the cutest thing!!

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    1. Thanks Julie! Glad to have you as a reader. My wife will also be glad that she melted your heart. I think most things are better melted. Butter, cheese, hearts... (I haven't eaten my lunch yet)

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  2. *dies* She's the smartest, most creative, adorable thing.

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    1. ...and most likely plotting our demise. But she'll make it look cute when she does it.

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  3. I have to kiss my three year old son 10 times goodnight while he counts them aloud. If he gets distracted, or forgets a number, or I air kiss him because I'm in a hurry and want to enjoy tv time...the process starts all over again. 10 consecutive, deliberate kisses on the nose, cheek or mouth; the boy will accept no less. No way will I ever try to skip this routine...I'll wait (sadly) for the night he tells me he doesn't need 10 kisses anymore.

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    1. That is so awesome! What a cool kid. I wish you guys lived up here so our kids could be friends. You should move back because I said so.

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    2. Dying here! I sortof want to make my son start this tradition. He's 9 months old so I still have some semblance of power at the moment. I know it's short lived though!

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  4. That is too adorable. And makes perfect sense, I'm sure, in her two-year-old mind. Why WOULDN'T she tuck in all her things?

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  5. This is too funny--my daughter does the same thing! Every time I would show someone her room I would think to myself it looks like a morgue or a crime scene in here....

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  6. We have to load up his hands with kisses in case he misses us through the night and his very first "lovey" item was an empty deoderant container.

    We have also set up an "alarm" for him. It is Christmas lights strung up in his room and plugged into a timer. At 6:30 they turn on and he knows he can get out of bed. This morning he ignored those lights, but still let us sleep, and instead went into the bathrooom to watch his bath crayons "fall" into the (empty) bathtub and start scribbling around. I had no idea that Crayola crayons had gotten to the point of including artificial intelligence.

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  7. Mom,
    My kids are "Irish Twins", 4 days less than 1 year apart. When they were little (30+ years ago) we had a Winnie the Pooh Hunny Jar toy box.
    My daughter, who is the oldest, would empty all the toys out of the box, and put her little brother inside, put on the lid and sit on it, so he couldn't escape. Fortunately, the toy box had big air holes in it, so he was in no danger. We would laugh hysterically as he tried to push her off the lid so he could get out, but he never learned to not get in it in the first place!

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    1. Ha, that's hilarious! Some kids just don't learn not to listen to that older sibling of theirs. I have a sister that's 18 months older than me and we have video (and I have memories) of her bossing me around and I did exactly what she said, exactly when she said it. No idea why.

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    2. Stevie,
      About 4 years later they were outside, and she was trying to tell him what to do, and he hauled off and gave her a bloody nose with one punch. She stopped trying to tell him what to do after that!

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  8. Which child?? LOL The oldest, 18 in Dec, had to do the motorboat sound followed by three kisses for every nap. he still does the motorboat sound but gives me funny looks if I want to kiss his cheek. The middle child, now 14, required one cat, one book and one teddy bear. Kisses were for "babies" and at the ripe old age of two, refused them except on birthdays. The youngest, just turned 13, requires, even at this age, one cat, a hug, a cuddle, a kiss on the cheek, and music.

    But who am I kidding? I have to read, snuggle the cat and sleep during daylight hours LOL

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    1. Oh don't tell me that! If the Duchess starts refusing kisses anytime soon I will be heart broken! In fact, she now thinks it's a game. Almost to the point where it gets awkward because she wants to many. No means no, daughter. No means no.

      That's so cute all three have different little rituals!

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  9. That is pretty darn adorable right there.

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  10. That is so gorgeous! Don't know which is the best, "the perp"or "the investigator" for realising that the crime was one of compassion and caring for others......That could have been thought of so differently in our "Hurried pace" world.....Thanks 'MOM" for highlighting the need to look outside the square at all times when parenting.....

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    1. Oh Louise McIntosh, you just made this pregnant woman cry. But don't feel bad. I cried this morning when I realized my good bra was all the way downstairs in the laundry room.

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    2. I haven't been pregnant for 12 years and I would still cry if my good bra was downstairs at my house too.....Ok so in my case its a 3-step staircase, as its a split level home...but an incline is an incline right?!?!?!

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  11. My Princess needs kissies from daddy and mommy,Roxy (our Great dane), then for me to tell her a story about Princess H (insert her name), with a light back scratching. and maybe a little fingers thru the hair. I wouldn't have it any other way.

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  12. haha how cute was that! My nephew goes to sleep with all his teddy bears and stuffed animals because he is scared the others will feel "left-out"...I don't know if that's comfortable for him or not, but at least I know he is gonna be one hell of an emotional man!

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  13. Commercial Fitness equipment including treadmills, ellipticals, bikes and custom strength equipment. I enjoyed the tips you are providing on your website about fitness.

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  14. What a sweet little shoes mama she is! I just caught my 3 year old sticking her doodles in the phone directory-because "there are no pictures in this book mama"

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  15. Just want to let you know I stack my blankets the same way...by size, colour/print, blanket weight...not OCD at all (yeah, right!). And I noticed you have aden + anais blankets, which are my new obsession. Love them! Great post :)

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