Nap Judgment

I love NJ's naps. She's been asleep for almost 90 minutes now and I've paid a stack of bills, categorized some photographs, added an app to my iPhone, cleaned out my inbox, answered a couple of e-mails, read a couple of sports blogs (your favorite blogger just won a 161-person NFL pool! Huzzah and hooray!), started writing this item, and poured my third cup of coffee.

The key to keeping NJ sleeping is 1) the warm basement, 2) the rocking swing (which we will have to wean her off of soon, I'm afraid), and 3) keeping the lullaby music going. I can hear it from the office, and when 'Radio Ga Ga' is about halfway through I go in and start the "Rockabye Baby! Lullaby Renditions of Queen" CD over again. (I've always been lukewarm on Queen, but this is probably our favorite of the rock lullaby CDs we have. The irritating, overrated "Bohemian Rhapsody" was positively MADE for the xylophone-and-glockenspiel bedtime treatment.)

Last night I didn't have high hopes for NJ's sleepy time today. She absolutely refused to nap Saturday and Sunday, and that makes for a cranky, squeaky, eye-rubbing kid at the end of the day. And the morning nap is, to me, a mystery. Why would she be ready to sleep if she has only been up for three hours? I put her in the swing, darkened the basement and turned on the CD thinking that we'd make it through all the songs, she'd be wide awake at the end of it, and I'd carry her back upstairs, defeated. But after about ten seconds of fuss, her head listed to one side and she was Out. Cold.

Ah, NJ just started crying. She slept for 100 minutes total, and now she's hungry. The best part of her nap is when she wakes up: She cries, I show up in her line of vision, and the crying turns to a stretch and a sleepy smile.