USP - Unscheduled Sleep Positions VI

Now this is a sight I like to see. If he can pass out on the carpet, he must be playing hard.

The trouble with this though, lies in the timing. I'm sure he could get a good hour and a half in, and at 11 am, no problem. But at 6 pm? It's just too much sleep, too late in the day!

Just before Godzilla turned three, Kate and I would get into it about naps. I loved getting him down around 2 and letting him sleep for two hours, then going to work. It really eased up the end of my day at home. But every day he took a nap for me, he was up that much later for her at bedtime. He was so tired and cranky, he needed the nap, and I needed him to have the nap, but then he wasn't tired at night. Eventually, his bedtime routine won out and our daily midday naps ended. So, this is what we get now from him. And even these are falling away, becoming less frequent.

So, when I find him like this, I'm happy to snap a picture and let him sleep as long as he needs. If he's falling asleep while the dump trucks are still out, he probably shouldn't be operating heavy machinery anyway!

Questioning an Involved Parent

Lets just get this over with.


I'm a dad.

I'm involved with my kids.

I encourage them to be active, eat well, be polite, go to school, ride their bikes.

Sometimes, I even put two or three of those things together.

So imagine my surprise when I get a call from my son's speech therapist saying the school doesn't want me riding my bike to school with my son, because I might be a predator or my son could get hit by a car in the parking lot.

What?

Go ahead, if you haven't already, read that again. I'll wait.

USP - Unscheduled Sleep Positions V

An oldie but a goodie. I think I slept more in this chair the first two years of Nat's life than I did my own bed. She was such a hard one to get to sleep. Kate and I would spend hours at night or nap time with her on our lap, often asleep, just to get her to sleep as well. Of course, she's stubborn and would just yell for hours on end if left in her bed until she made herself sick. Then when we would hold her and she finally passed out, as soon as we tried to lay her down she would wake up, ready for round two.

Needless to say, I drank a lot of coffee and walked around in a haze everywhere I went those two years.

#AskAwayFriday 5 Questions

One of my favorite Moms on Twitter, Mrs. Penny Chevalley invited me to do some blog-hopping this week with #AskAwayFriday. Little did she know when she asked, that I can't say no to a good blog-hop! After all  who doesn't enjoy meeting new people! If you're here reading this post, you probably already know Penny, if not, go check her out at her blog; The Real Housewife of Caroline County! If nothing else, click over to see my questions for her and the answers she had for them. Also, don't forget to take a look at the other entries found near the bottom of this page.

If you don't know what you're getting here, #AskAwayFriday is all about getting to know fellow bloggers by each asking 10 random questions. Penny went easy on me and only asked 5 of the regular 10, so without further adieu, I give you her questions and my answers...

Building a Kids Tool Box

See, just a little guy!

Ever since he was just a little guy, Godzilla has been in love with tools. It started when he was just walking, and he picked up my cordless drill (no bit in it of course) and carried it around with him, with the biggest grin on his face. We knew right then, what he would be getting for Christmas that year.

Fast forward four years to today. He got some money for his birthday, so we made a trip to Toys R Us. What did he find to buy, but a tool set. While we had looked at everything, from Lego to superheros to cars and trains, once we found a real tool set with a real tool belt, and a wooden dump truck he could build with it, the decision was made.

Then we came home and he let me know in no uncertain terms that he would not be building his truck until he had a tool box to keep his new tools in.

USP - Unscheduled Sleep Positions IV

If you take a toddler to the store, he'll be too tired to walk, so he'll ask to ride in the cart. And if he's riding in the cart because he's too tired to walk, he'll probably fall asleep. And if he falls asleep in the cart, you're likely to have a peaceful shopping trip.

Birthday Bash at Legoland Discovery Center, Chicago

We try to do something special for the kids birthdays each year. Last year we visited Great Wolf Lodge in Traverse City, MI. The kids loved the waterpark and all that goes along with it and begged to go back, and while we look forward to our next visit, we like to keep things fresh, so we planned something new this year.

Nat wanted to visit the American Girl store located in Watertower Place on Michigan Ave right in the heart of downtown Chicago, while Godzilla has been begging to go to Legoland D.C. just up the highway in lovely Schaumburg, IL. So, to make things easier, and to keep me from going crazy at the A.G. store (seriously, have you ever seen that place?) Kate took Nat for her special day, and after dropping them off on the Magnificent Mile, I took the boy on the short drive out to the 'burbs and the glory of a day full of a billion bricks.