Time machine

If you were to hit the rewind button on this funny thing called life, if you were to go back one year to last summer, you would see a very different nap time routine.

Last year naps were more of a battle. There was a lot of crying (from both of us) a lot of begging (again, from both of us) and just a lot of misery. This morning Jude took me by the hand, led me into his bedroom and stopped in front of the crib. He held out his hands and said, "Up?"

I fell all over myself trying to get him ready for his nap before he changed his mind. A quick mental list formed in my head: diaper, milk, Blue (Blue is his animal blankie who was currently on my bed because he saw Sophie with her teddy bear blankie and immediatly demanded Blue). I rushed downstairs and put a bottle of milk in the microwave (uh, because I thought the nap would last longer with some milk in the belly), then I ran over to the diapers and wipes (!#$&) and remembered Jude had taken all the wipes out of the box after breakfast and I had just crammed them all back in in a very disorganized fashion. I grabbed a wipe and called Jude over but he was too busy staring at the microwave from where his milk would soon emerge. So I changed his diaper in the kitchen with him standing, laughing at the absurdity of it.

We got upstairs and sat in the rocker while Jude drank his milk. As I was putting him in the crib I realized I had forgotten Blue.

As Jude would say, oh cap (he would mean "crap"). But wait! The blankie with the mouse in the center was also in the crib!

And so, in less time than it would have taken me last year just to change his diaper (he was in the wiggley-I-don't-want-my-diaper-changed-phase), Jude was in bed. Asleep. Of his own asking.
Oh. And the bonus? Sophie had quietly fallen asleep as well by the time I finished with Jude.