Marking time with naps

For a stay-at-home mom, naptime can be the most sacred of times, even more so than after the kids go to bed. That half hour to sometimes three hours, can be so much for a mom. I think partly it’s because most husbands are not home on weekdays so when the kids sleep, that time can be ours.

Many days I choose not to spend the whole naptime folding the laundry, cleaning up the dishes, unloading the dishwasher or sweeping the floor. Although, I have figured out that I can pretty much clean my entire downstairs in the hour my kids sleep. (Forgive me as I have a teeny tiny house, one of the few perks to that.)

Last night at my mom’s group Cooking Club, we were explaining the recipes we made and how long they took to prepare, and the time was measured “in naptimes.” Such as: “I chopped the veggies during nap and finished it up during dinner; I was able to make the whole cake during naptime; I prepared the everything during naptime and cooked it right before I got here.” We laughed at how everyone measured time in increments of ‘how long our children slept.’

One of the perks to having kids less than two years apart, was once my youngest was on a nap schedule (about 4 months, my son was 20 months), I had a lot of time when people were sleeping during the day to take care of things. Some afternoons, I would have two and half hours with no children awake. I am lucky that Alex (3 ½) and Anna (2) still do take very regular naps, and everyday I can usually count on a full hour to myself. I mark my time during the day with before nap and after nap. That during naptime is totally my time and I know exactly how many activities, projects, etc. can be done during that time. I’m a little afraid of what will happen when the naps end. I might find myself lost looking for a some kind of unit to measure and mark the day.