Give and take...

So, I'm a big believer in napping. Moose naps and he's 3 1/2. And when he does nap, it's always 2 hours minimum, frequently 3 hours. That's how we know he still needs it. Granted, he wakes up at 6, but he also goes to bed at 7. So we give and take. Me and hubs go to bed pretty early ourselves, so it fits our lifestyle.  Despite all this, Moose sometimes doesn't want to nap. Or Monkey coughs so much during the beginning naptime that he can't fall asleep. Today was one of these days.

After a short while of hearing Monkey cough and hoping Moose was asleep before it started (the kid could sleep through a tornado), Moose did come out of his room. Instead of fighting him about his nap (when I do make him nap, he will eventually sleep, but at a major emotional cost to both of us. I'm deciding it's just not worth that much emotional energy) I decided to compromise. Kind of. I let him stay awake. But he was not allowed to play on the computer, watch shows (which for us means movies or dvd episodes), be loud, ask me to play with him, or bother me in any way since it was my ME time to get things done. I must say that it went quite well. He eventually wanted to hang around me and constantly ask me what I was doing, etc. But it ended up working out really well. I've hesitated to do this because he's not very good at playing independently anymore. He's to this weird stage where he doesn't like playing with his toys very much. He only likes to crash things. Crash his cars, crash his train tracks, crash his blocks. That gets old pretty fast. So his playtime has become a bit frustrating. But for a good hour (I might be overestimating) he played with his cars. Something he used to do easily for hours on end when he was younger, but hasn't done since his sister was born last April and we took it upon ourselves to travel, move, and move again.

Good lesson today: the occasional compromise might end up being not-so-bad.

Glory moment: We went on a walk with my mother-in-law this afternoon. On the way back, we were talking about some of the things I do with Moose in "school" each morning. Last month we memorized a scripture from John (3:16). He usually repeated after me, but the last week we said it together. I'd heard him randomly (often on the toilet) say a line all on his own. I asked him if he could say it for her, and he said the entire thing. (a decent sized sentence.) I was so excited. I know Moose is a smart little guy, but it was so exciting to hear him recite something like that.

Not so glory moment: Moose doing something behind my back to make his sister cry, and then staring at me while she cries and not saying he's sorry, or asking her if she's okay, or offering to make it better. It seems like such a little thing, a little complaint from the mother. But it's so annoying. And becoming a somewhat regular problem. One day it was him pushing/knocking her over and then turning around and walking away as she cried (that one I saw). So our new talk is: "No, it's not okay to make someone cry and walk away." It's the little lessons in life...