Next up, blood-thirsty bunnies
Marlo is officially down to two naps. For those of you who do not have children, that first sentence will mean nothing to you. For those of you who do, you probably just experienced an instinctual pain in your chest at the memory of what it means to plan your life around your baby's sleep schedule. Or is that just me? I can't be the only one who has run outside and verbally berated the garbage truck driver for disturbing a nap, THERE GOES THE REST OF MY DAY.
Garbage truck diver, snow plower, mail carrier... all have been informed at one time or another of Marlo's sleep schedule. It goes like this: when Marlo's asleep, no one is allowed to breathe. The end.
You don't want that crazy, short-haired Southern lady who looks like an eight-year-old boy running out into the street in her bare feet. She may be liberal, but she's related to people who own guns.
And just this week we've managed to manipulate her schedule so that she's sleeping in until 6:30 AM. Do you have any idea how indulgent this feels, to sleep in so late? No, you don't understand. It like we're fifteen years old, and suddenly the prophet has declared that pre-marital sex is totally okay.
I guess I should say, that one time we slept in so late since our other child has decided that days now begin at 5 AM. Read that again: FIVE O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING. You want to know why? Because she thinks a leprechaun is tapping on her window.
I cannot believe I just wrote that sentence.
I mean, I can understand a fear of spiders or earthquakes or rats that are big enough to eat your face off. But, little green dudes? If anything you want them at your party because they can hold their liquor. Also, don't they all come with marshmallows?
And, I don't remember ever talking to her about leprechauns, so I'm guessing this is one of those rotten things she picked up at school, like addition and subtraction. And what do you know, IT IS. Turns out one has been coming into their classroom and leaving notes in the days leading up to St. Patrick's Day. And this afternoon when I told her teacher about this early-morning tapping leprechaun, she said with a gleam in her eye, "Oh yes, he'd be tapping, for sure. They're cobblers, you know."
HAHA! I'm laughing because, that is just so damn brilliant. They have to deal with our kids all day long, and oh no. Is your kid waking up early? How sad for you who get to send them AWAY ALL DAY. It's like, if I'm going to blame the teacher for the leprechaun, she's more than happy to break out her fifty-page, single-spaced document of quirks she'd like explained, thank you very much.
Well played, elementary school teachers. Well played.
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- Jon fell asleep and started snoring at 7:15 last night. I thought, wow, that sounds like fun. I call this Adding That Second Child.
- Office remodel, episode two: http://bit.ly/dmqDas
- Leta, after saving her money for six months to buy a toy and purchasing it this afternoon: "Today is the best day of my entire life."
RandomAmy said:
I was a preschool teacher. We had a lot of tricks. Mwuahahaha!
03.10.10 - 05:23 PM / 1ccoffey said:
It's because of school that my children are afraid of the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny, and Santa Claus. And when I say afraid, I mean like TOTALLY TERRIFIED. Last year, my daughter's teacher set up a trap for the leprechaun. A trap! My daughter was horrified...like if we catch it then WE have to do something with it. Yeah- well played indeed...
03.10.10 - 05:25 PM / 2itcouldbelove said:
As a preschool teacher (of 5-year-olds who were too young for kinder last year) this CRACKS me up. Although, I'm not sure I've ever done anything evil like that... because I'm scared of you parents. YOU! PARENTS! Ahem. But still, this made me laugh.
03.10.10 - 05:28 PM / 3kimjay_everyday said:
If my kids woke up at 5 AM, I would kill myself - or them. Which, is probably why God, in His infinite wisdom, spared our lives and gave me later sleepers. Props to you, Heather.
03.10.10 - 05:29 PM / 4They made me ch... said:
I think I had something to say until I got stage fright from being possibly one of the first ten commenters. I think I was going to say something about school-fueled holiday escalation and how, as if it weren't enough for parents to have to keep up the Santa, Easter Bunny, and Tooth Fairy ruses, now we have to help set traps for leprechauns. And yes, leprechauns-and-how-to-catch-them is definitely a growing part of the modern curriculum, if my own kids and nieces and nephews are any indication. Also, my kindergartner believes the Ginger Bread Man is real because she SAW how he disappeared from the oven in the school kitchen and showed up later on the playground. (That one's pretty cute, actually.)
(Well, I remembered what I was going to say, but probably lost my top-ten spot. Also, it appears that for me, stage fright causes long rambling comments.)
03.10.10 - 05:30 PM / 5Melina said:
I watched the Flintstones ONCE as a kid, and it was episode where Fred and Barney were sitting on lawn chairs and little green men with long arms were snatching at them from beneath the chairs.
Come to think of it, that does not sounds particularly stone age, but I really remember that was an episode.
Either way, a lifelong fear of leaving a limb dangling off the bed when sleeping was born.
And, your comment about the prophet was BRILLIANT!
03.10.10 - 05:30 PM / 6The Prima Momma said:
I'm jealous. Where were the leprechauns when I was in grade school? And since when are they cobblers? That's elves. No wait - elves make cookies in trees... Damn, see how my faulty education is hurting me now?
03.10.10 - 05:33 PM / 7thelearningcommunity said:
The worst is that no matter how much you try to tell them that the teacher is just playing a game, and those nightmarish creatures aren't real, you'll never hold as much sway as a teacher. I mean c'mon, it's their job to be honest, right?
And even if they didn't teach these things, the kids totally come up with them on their own. We currently have a dog footed goon that walks back and forth in front of the window making shadows and it does occasionally tap. Why dog footed? So its prints blend in with our dogs' prints and it can't be detected. Of course. But that begs the question: How can a dog tap? Wouldn't it be more of a thud, with the hair and all?
03.10.10 - 05:33 PM / 8ehorn said:
I used to get anxiety over waking my baby from a nap until we started using an ambient noise maker to make loud ocean waves. I can yell at my cats and throw things at them and to this day those artificial waves drown all that out and she sleeps thru it.
03.10.10 - 05:36 PM / 9smithie1996 said:
I am so glad you posted this today since tonight I am moving the kiddo downstairs to his new room. I am really really hoping I have timed this right so that he is not really aware that his room is downstairs. I am hoping he is still young enough to be so totally brainwashed into going to sleep at 7.30 that he just won't care where he goes to sleep. Fingers crossed!
tap
tap
tap
Oh your kid cracks me up. But I am sorry she is getting up at 5.00.
03.10.10 - 05:37 PM / 10Kendra said:
As the parent of a first-grader and a day care provider, I have to laugh. I do see him come home with the strangest comments that I have to talk out again and again, trying to figure out where he got this latest idea. But then, of course, I have to dance my way around fears of falling into the toilet and being eaten by the sharks who live inside (not my fear, that of the kids I watch). So I know what it's like to be the parent and the caregiver, and neither of us are sure where the kids get these strange ideas.
I actually have to say congratulations on the 2-nap schedule for Marlo. I found with my kids that before they hit that point, I had no idea whether I could go anywhere at a given time, because the baby may or may not insist that it was naptime and they couldn't possibly be disturbed or we would all die. Once they hit that point, I could at least say that these times of the day were sacred. It was unfortunate that those times were roughly 10 AM to 11 AM and 1 PM to 3 PM, ensuring that I was never able to venture more than 10 minutes from home. But at least I knew that.
03.10.10 - 05:40 PM / 11hoosiergirl1962 said:
Geesh-
When I was in kindergarten, we were taught about the Leprechauns being in charge of the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. We loved the frigging Leprechaun. We played some damn game chasing the Leprechauns. A sidebar about St. Patrick's Day: My mom, first grade teacher for 41 years, always made a big deal about St Paddy's Day. A friend of hers, an art teacher, decided to give Mom some "special St. Patrick's Day coloring music". He calls me and tells me to show up at 230 at her classroom for a surprise. Long story short, its pretty cool to have first graders coloring leprechaun pictures to the soundtrack of "Sunday, Bloody, Sunday".
The art teacher and I were very happy....
Mother was not amused...
03.10.10 - 05:41 PM / 12Gwenevere said:
Hey id you don't like the leprechaun tradition, you can always homeschool. ;)
03.10.10 - 05:45 PM / 13austinmomof7 said:
My condolences to you. My two and a half year old is trying to already give up her naps. And still get up at 6am. And still not go to bed till 10 pm. And make my life miserable. Well, more miserable. I'm considering large doses of Benadryl.
03.10.10 - 05:47 PM / 14Amyblam said:
Oh, those wacky teachers and their crafty leprechauns. Somehow, my daughter had always had mischievious leprechauns in her classes-the kind that leave messes and move items around.
Her leprechaun, of course, likes to follow her home and spread sparkly confetti everywhere. He also leaves notes and loses clothing.
03.10.10 - 05:49 PM / 15Candi C said:
Next week your clock will say "7:30" a.m. when Marlo wakes because of Day Light Savings Time!! You won't know what to do with yourself after sleeping in! My kids love the leprechaun but have nothing to do any of the others.
03.10.10 - 05:55 PM / 16DomesticatedGal said:
Feeling a bit of an underachiever, since I'm thrilled if my kid waits until 5am to decide his day has started. Of course, he's also still waking up every 2-3 hours to feed. And he just went down for what is becoming a long nap. Which means come 3am, I'm screwed. But good to know he should (hopefully) eventually reach 630am!
03.10.10 - 06:00 PM / 17radkitch said:
maybe she's thinking of this Leprechaun....http://www.moviesonline.ca/movie_posters.php?id=11301. I think you should show it to her. She'll never speak of them again.
03.10.10 - 06:01 PM / 18Soft Kitty said:
My kindergartener hates leprechauns. They showed up to her preschool last year and turned over all the furniture and colored their rice green. Apparently they are very mischievous, her words not mine. She is not very happy that it's St.Patricks Day next week. She doesn't want to go to school that day. She's afraid what they will do to her class.
03.10.10 - 06:19 PM / 19bethysmalls said:
Heather, you just made me feel so much better for when I would SERIOUSLY consider buying a b-b gun to shoot the tires of the motorcycles as they drove by with their loud-ass pipes. Oh the fantasies I'd dream up of knocking them over as they drive by and that some how making them magically disappear. Except of course for the broken mangled bike that would serve as a warning to other inconsiderate motorcyclists with motors so loud that they set off CAR ALARMS!
It's nice to know people actually stand up for their sleeping children/sanity. Instead of just dream about it.
03.10.10 - 06:47 PM / 20Trish has 3 girls said:
The nap schedule is sacred! I too have let the trash collector and mail carrier know when not to come to my house. As well as the gardner and any delivery person. I have taped a handwritten sign over the door bell that says to ring at risk of death for the baby is sleeping!
Yay on 2 naps and a schedule!
03.10.10 - 06:55 PM / 21teetotaled said:
My 8 month old wakes up at 4 a.m......zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
I am also a psycho about people disturbing nap time. I am already panicking about the furniture delivery guys that are coming "some time on Saturday". Really, some time?! How about you come in between her naps or you diieeeeeee! :-)
03.10.10 - 06:58 PM / 22big dog momma said:
Naptime was, indeed, a sacred time, so I had the great idea to make sure they'd learn to sleep through anything...not with "ambient" noise makers, but with a thing we used decades ago when my kids were little called **wait for it** a radio!! They learned to sleep through EVERYTHING. While this was fantastic most times, the night the smoke alarm went off and I bolted straight out of bed to find all four girls snoring away, oblivious to the racket going on around them, I began to re-think my strategy. The "baby" is 19 now, and somehow they all managed to survive my great ideas of parenting!!!
03.10.10 - 07:01 PM / 23melancholyfleur said:
Right. So. Bad news is, turns out, blood-thirsty bunnies actually ARE up next; or at least they're in the near future. I remember a book we read in class in 5th grade about vampire bunnies. Not even kidding. I'm sorry to have to tell you this, but you called it.
03.10.10 - 07:15 PM / 24heymamas said:
TOTALLY!! Happened to us with oh, yeah... you name it.
Sadie at heyMamas
03.10.10 - 07:20 PM / 25Zannah said:
Bunnicula! Scariest bunny ever. And when I first read it, I pronounced it "bunny-coola". What did I know?
03.10.10 - 07:22 PM / 26Liz Picco said:
Curtains, mi vida! Thick dark, designer whimsical curtains that shield the light should do the trick. My sons slept in past 9:00 many weekends.
If you want to chase down garbage trucks to keep your kid asleep, be my guest, it's keeping you in shape.
03.10.10 - 07:23 PM / 27holy interruptu... said:
Hmmm, am I the only one who imagined the teacher has a thick Irish accent?!? I keep reading the sentence over and over and giggling (and earning weird looks from others in the library!)
03.10.10 - 07:42 PM / 28amylusk said:
6:30 - oh how I would love to sleep until 6:30!! Our youngest son who is almost 4 has never slept through the night, did you hear that, never! That means I have had 4 years of interrupted sleep. Luckily he does still take an afternoon nap and on weekends that means I get one too. Our oldest son slept through the night almost from birth - we call it second child syndrome.
03.10.10 - 07:46 PM / 29peeko621 said:
Seriously, I laughed at loud at the tapping leprechauns waking Leta up! It is completely amazing the stories and imaginations that little kids have. My son Jack totally believes in the "Halloween Witch" (she leaves a toy for all of your halloween candy), Santa, the tooth fairy, and Santa. Thankfully though, he loves getting up early for quiet tv time where he doesn't have to watch Sesame Street. haha!
03.10.10 - 07:49 PM / 30