Today was a “no nap” day for my toddler. Actually, every day this week has been a no-nap day.
Today, the whole of naptime lasted approximately forty-five minutes. It started with sad tears and a steady stream of “No nap! No rest!” followed by his insisting on book after book after book, then song after song after song. After placing him in his crib, he continued to talk to himself loudly until “naptime” finally ended when I went to get him after he kept saying the phrase “tiny little car!” in louder and louder decibels.
No-nap days pull an ugly side out of me. I love spending each day with my children, but I also really like naptime. I rely on it. I count on it. For time to do dishes. Time to pray. Time to shower. Time to read or write. Time to clean toilets or fold laundry. Time just alone. And on days when my children don’t nap it can feel like a huge deal. Those things I counted on doing during naptime suddenly get pushed to the evening. The things I planned to do in the evening get pushed to never. My energy level suffers from not having some quiet downtime in the midst of the day, and my patience tends to be shorter.
On days like today, I have sometimes really let the frustration get to me. I can cling so hard to my idea of how my day is going to go or to the high priority I’ve given alone time that I have extreme trouble letting go and accepting with an open hand what a no-nap day can give. On the occasions I’ve torn my mind away from my frustration and looked at the situation with peace, I’ve realized no-nap days are days to grow in trust.
Firstly, to grow in trust in my child.
Something I’ve noticed about myself is that I am often unwilling to begin a task unless I know I can finish it in one sitting, or at least come to a good, clean stopping point. Being a mom has really challenged that in me, but I still tend to feel like I don’t even want to attempt a chore or project unless my kids are fast asleep and I’ve got a good chance of working uninterrupted.
Today the dishes had piled up. When I brought Oliver downstairs from his non-nap, I told him “You can play, but I’ve got some cleaning I have to do.” A short way into the pile of dishes, I turned around to see Ollie with his miniature broom and dust pan, uncoordinatedly trying to sweep up some crumbs. My heart melted. He had heard me and taken it upon himself to help me clean. Now, he quickly abandoned his attempts and I didn’t get the dishes done in one go, but I got a much-needed reminder that Oliver can be included in the chores—his help will be imperfect and the task will go slower, but as part of the family, he can and should be trusted with the simple day-to-day doings of the family. And when he’s not participating in the task himself, he can (most of the time) be trusted to play on his own.
No-nap days also force me to trust more in my own parenting.
There’s a subtle transition that takes place in the first two years or so of a kids’ life in which the dynamic switches from one in which the child alerts you to their needs moment by moment to one in which they need you to tell them what they need when they need it. These days, my son is too engaged in his play to notice he needs a nap, or rather, his simple cries that told me he was tired when he was an infant have changed into a more complex, wordy moodiness that I, as the parent, need to break through with a simple directive: “It’s time to take a nap.”
There’s the temptation to feel like I’m wrong to insist on it (It’s almost midnight and I’m working on a blog post . . . what do I know about sleep routines?). Especially on days like today when no part of the nap routine goes unfought, it can feel like I’m wrong in some way—he doesn’t need a nap, or he needed one earlier but I missed that opportunity—but on other days, I can tell my parenting is on point. It may still be a no-nap day, but he rests quietly for an hour in his crib and he gets up noticeably refreshed. It’s harder to see it, but even on a day like today, I can draw from smoother days to feel confident in my knowledge of my child and my interactions with him. And what’s more, my child really needs me to be confident in my parenting so he knows he can trust me.
Most importantly, no-nap days teach me to trust more in God.
Personal prayer time is the number one casualty on no-nap days. Many times I’ve sat staring at the monitor with a closed Bible in my lap, watching a tossing and turning kid, and thought: “Just go to sleep kid! I’m trying to pray!”
What a ridiculous notion that my kids could ever get in the way of God’s ability to be with me.
My favorite modern-day spiritual writer, Father Jacques Phillipe, pinpoints this exact situation. He writes in a little book I highly recommend, Searching for and Maintaining Peace: “[There is] the temptation to believe that, in the situation which is ours (personal, family, etc.), we lack something essential and that because of this, our progress, and the possibility of blossoming spiritually, is denied us.” In order to cast off this temptation, Father Jacques writes that we must realize “it is not the exterior circumstances that must change; it is above all our hearts that must change. They must be purified of their withdrawal into themselves, of their sadness, their lack of hope.”
That’s exactly what happens when I simply turn away from that grinding, tense frustration at the situation in which I find myself and instead trust in God to provide in an unexpected way that which I feel so sure I am missing. God doesn’t need me at my most focused mindset and in the perfect setting to reach me, teach me, and make me more like Him. Those are artificial restrictions that I put on myself—God has no bounds outside of our own free will.
In fact, it is in the very substance of my vocation, in all its messiness, loudness, and communal-ness that he intends to make me a saint. As Father Jacque Phillipe says, “[M]any of the circumstances that they thought negative and damaging to their spiritual life are, in fact, in God’s pedagogy, powerful means for helping them to progress and grow.” That’s not to say that quiet, personal prayer time isn’t important, but that, when it becomes an impossibility for reasons outside of my control, I can trust that God is simply inviting me to meet Him somewhere else—actually, right where I am.
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