My toddler still takes a nap every afternoon. I would lose my sanity without that nap. It’s like a little slice of quiet in an otherwise chaotic world. That being said, I go to great lengths to ensure that this aforementioned nap takes place. What that means is that I have to often get creative and figure out ingenious ways to entice her to lie down.
One of my favourite ‘tricks’ is to promise my daughter a bedtime story at nap time. This entails lying down with her while I make up a fun and entertaining tale that is long enough to make her sleepy. This story must always involve a princess named Seanna and it must always be a one-of-a kind original edition.
This princess is quite the character. She loves to play with pink ponies in her kingdom of fairies and butterflies. She has a house full of dogs that love to play basketball with her and a cat that knows how to talk. The princess goes on the craziest adventures that get crazier as the story goes on.
You see, there’s a slight hiccup in my strategy. I’ve mentioned how the story needs to be long enough to make my energetic toddler sleepy. Well, the thing is that her not-so-energetic mother usually gets sleepy a lot sooner than she does.
And when mommy is tired, she starts to make no sense. This results in a princess that becomes increasingly erratic in her behaviour. The princess goes from enjoying a nice pony ride in the country side to folding laundry for a newborn baby after cleaning the bathtub and paying overdue bills.
As mommy gets drowsy, the stories change from fun and games to household chores and to-do lists. It’s quite the phenomenon and one I’m sure that most tired parents can relate to. I bet there’s more than one parent who has gone from talking about dragons to some nonsensical gibberish in their half-asleep state.
The worst part is when your toddler looks at you with utter confusion and asks you why the princess decided to go to the bank. It’s definitely no fun when you have to then spend the next ten minutes explaining exactly what a bank is.
And the cycle continues when the bank morphs into the computer repair shop about five l-o-n-g and tiring minutes in.
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