Kid Thief

Daniel has pretty much grown out of naps. He doesn't need them most days, but if I know it's gonna be a long or tiring evening, we make him take a nap.

Today (Mother's Day and also Violet's 2nd Birthday) is one of those days. And since my mom is still in town visiting, Daniel has been sleeping in our bed. (You won't hear me complain about that... I still love it.)

He doesn't love the idea of naps, so in order to help persuade him, I employed the beloved method of "in on the secret" bribery. I showed him the "top secret" birthday cake in the fridge for Violet and explained that he needed to take a nap or he would definitely not be getting any birthday cake.

His eyes bulged at the cake... the temptation began it's work. But then he composed himself and very thoughtfully told me, "Mommy, if I eat too much food, my tummy hurts. And I don't want that. So I think I'll just color instead of taking a nap."

Let's all say it together: BACKFIRE. First time in history that this kid has passed up cake.

So plan B it was... I just told him to get in bed. He did as he was told with one request: A naptime story. He scampered to the bookshelf and selected "The Night Before Christmas".

On this day, Mother's Day and Violet's Birthday, it seemed an interesting request but it ended up being pretty fun to discuss sugarplums and concepts like "bowlful of jelly" in the middle of May. Daniel stayed interested throughout the dense language until the very end, when he became suddenly very bothered:

"He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle, And away they all flew like the dawn of a thistle. But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight..."

He pointed to the dad on the page. "Mommy, what's the daddy saying?"

I said, "He is saying bye to Santa, baby."

"No he's not, Mommy. He's saying 'I WANT MY BABY BACK!'" And Daniel got upset, pointing towards one of the elves on Santa's sleigh.

I tried to calm him down, "Honey, that's not his baby. That's just an elf from the North Pole. His baby is safe in his bed. Santa doesn't take babies."

Daniel thought for a minute, then pointed to another elf. "What about THAT one? Did Santa take that baby?"

I hope this memory doesn't stick around until December or we might have a traumatizing Christmas on our hands, folks.