Friday, September 11, 2009

Mops and mopping the floor with me

I went to my first MOPs meeting today.

If you don't know what MOPs is, it stands for Mothers of Preschoolers (and by Preschoolers, I mean pre-schoolage children - no, The Fuss has not entered PreK or anything). It was 3 hours of child-free mom-bonding. I liked it, and one of my good friends and several other friends are involved this year, so it should be a good time. They provide child care for said youngsters and no kids are allowed in the adult room (unless they are breastfeeding - they were sure to add that exception).

Anyhow, it was fun. And The Fuss had fun in her little class, as she always does in Sunday School (the meetings are held at my church and she is in the same classroom for Moppets as she is for SS. She even has some of the same classmates, though there are plenty of moms involved who don't go to church there). But it meant that she didn't get her usual morning nap.

I've been wondering about the nap lately. She's 18 months, and while I love the 2 nap a day thing, many days I've noticed that both naps are getting shorter, and I've been spreading them apart more lately, etc. (I've noticed that I type "etc." a lot. I'm sorry if it annoys. But for some reason, I feel the need to expound without having the words to do so, so I simply type "etc." and expect you to follow along. My creativity is obviously not what it used to be). So, when she skipped her morning nap a few days ago and then passed out in the car at 2:00 while we were running around and had a great afternoon nap, I thought, well, maybe we could do this more often! I love the two-nap thing when we're hanging out at home or work and have no where to go and I have things to do around the house, but I hate letting my entire schedule be dictated by the few hours we have in the middle of the day when she's not napping, so I'm sort of looking forward to the 1-nap thing. I'm not looking forward to the transition, though.

So, we left the church at 12:15 and We started to go home, but then I realized that I wanted to go to the library, and if I kept her up until 2 (as was my plan), I would quickly run out of time to do so. So we ran up to the library. I had several books I wanted to get (all but one were already checked out - which really really stinks, by the way - I don't get that much library time as it is, so missing the next books in the series really blows) and pretty much the minute we stopped in the stacks, she started melting down. I grabbed my one book and left. And then she fussed in the car the whole way home, right up until she fell asleep as we were pulling into the neighborhood. At 1:10. With no lunch in her tummy. And I wasn't sure if they had changed her diaper in Moppets, so I needed to check that out, too.

Parenting FAIL.

She actually slept through the diaper change. I was thinking she'd wake up and I could feed her and put her back down after she ate, and it would be at least closer to 2, but no - didn't work. She was basically unconscious the whole time.

So, now I don't know what to do, really. Should I expect a long nap? Or will her hunger get the best of her and she'll wake to eat in an hour and then need a late afternoon nap which will inevitably mess with her bedtime?

And I'm planning to do the same thing tomorrow. Yup.

I have a baby shower to attend tomorrow about 45 minutes away (one of the "Far Harbors" as my friend K would say) and it's from 10 to 12. My plan was to take her with me so that I can show her off and give Daddy Fuss some time to get some stuff done around the house, but now I'm nervous. What if it goes poorly and she fusses the whole time we're at the party? What if she falls asleep in the car on the way there and then is cranky because I have to wake her up when we get there? What if she wants to run around and tear the place apart because she is both bored and tired (an evil combination when you have a toddler)?

When am I ever going to get the hang of this parenting thing?

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