Five stages

Does my absence tell you my twins’ naptime has been compromised? Can you see that the small pockets of being alone, time to myself, time not spent watching people to make sure they don’t murder one another or themselves are slowly being robbed from me? CAN YOU?! I’d say, over the past month or so, with the exception of a day here and there when both girls sleep midday at some point, simultaneously sort of, that my daughters are trying to wean themselves of taking a nap. Their daily nap. The nap that made it possible for me to write, or read, or almost concentrate on something. The nap that gave me hope for the future and what’s left of putting the pieces back together of my sanity.

This developing situation seemed ridiculous to me when it began… I pretended it wasn’t happening. Went through the typical five stages of mourning: denial and isolation, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.

Truly. Last week was depression. It is so sad to say goodbye to something so comforting and good will filled as a nap. This week I believe I have arrived at some kind of acceptance. I will continue to make a minimal effort to offer up or make easy the option for a nap to these girls. I have not completely given up hope. And it isn’t as though they don’t need to nap anymore, because they really really do. But the desperation I was feeling at the beginning of the struggle is lifting. I no longer rush home like Cinderella at midnight, trying to make sure they are in bed by 2 p.m., worried they will get beyond the point of no return.

I will again, one day quite soon, have time to myself, almost equivalent to them napping. Starting in September, from 9 a.m.-12 noon, Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, I will drop them at their preschool and then will be alone for real. Alone, perhaps, to focus on finding a job, but alone nonetheless. Maybe they will be so tired from their mornings of high learning that they will beg me for a nap once we return home.

There is a certain relaxed quality to the day when I am not stressed about the nap. They still need a nap and I still need them to nap. But if it doesn’t happen, it doesn’t. I am learning to ignore them a bit to check email and edit through some writing stuff. Strange to transition from babyhood to almost beyond toddlerhood. And that’s just me. The girls have exceeded both those things and are onto something else entirely.