Last week, as I was folding laundry and Suzy was napping, I heard a little noise from Suzy's room. It sounded exactly like a small person trying to make as little noise as possible as she opened the cabinet on the play kitchen. Which of course it was.
I knew what was going on. Suzy had gotten out of bed and was playing. She knew she wasn't supposed to, so she was trying very hard to be quiet.
Suzy, however, didn't know that her little naughty self was making my afternoon. If Suzy actually goes to sleep, then after an hour, maybe an hour and a half, she wakes up. In her sweet, confused not-quite-awake state, she leaves her room and seeks me out immediately. However, if she ditches her nap and gets up and plays quietly, she's afraid to come out because she knows I'll put her back to bed. Since she has no watch and can't tell time anyway, she can't estimate a plausible amount of time to fake a nap. So she stays in her room, looking at books, doing puzzles, playing dolls, for up to TWO HOURS! I get to finish my work uninterrupted. When I do go get Suzy, we have time to play together. After dinner, she's usually so tired she wants to go to bed a little early.
Yes! It's a total win for me! I haven't quite wrestled with all the moral implications of delighting in my daughter's sneakiness though. Maybe the right thing to do the next time she ditches nap would be to go in after an hour and put her back in bed. That way I may get two and a half hours! Woo-hoo!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment