Ace Ventura, you are not.
For nap time, it seems we have been going about it all wrong. In previous attempts to lull the warriors to sleep we would lay our hostage takers down next to one another another hope Madge stopped screaming long enough for Bird to fall asleep and then hope Madge would fall asleep because she was too tired to scream anymore. The problem with that plan, no matter how sound it seemed for the past few months, was nap time is entirely too dependent on things outside of our control. As well as being hostage parents, my wife and I are also parents to two Maltese breed dogs. Molly is 8 years old with relatively low energy and is grumpy but stays to herself. The second Maltese, Lilly, not so much. Lilly is almost 2 and is a cute, cuddly bundle of terror. She screams rather than barks. It’s wild really. It’s a high pitched squeal that occurs every time someone comes in the door, rings the door bell, walks to fast, goes up the stairs, comes down the stairs or doesn’t give her immediate attention when she wants it. Now let me be clear. I am under no delusion that this is in some way her nature or just because she’s spiteful or spoiled. I am 100% aware that she behaves like that because my wife and I did a miserable job training her. In fact, what we did with the dog doesn’t even qualify as training. A scary prospect considering we now have to train two people, but for now we’ll pretend that one result is not an indication of future results. Anyhow, the point is that when we try to put Bird and Madge down in the playpen for a nap in the living room and Lilly hears a car pass or someone walks to quickly past her she’ll lift her head up from whichever article of the baby’s clothing she’s currently chewing on and scream which subsequently wakes up Madge who screams and wakes up the Bird. A vicious cycle. Because parenting infants, especially two at the same time apparently destroys more brain cells than a college frat party, it only occurred to us now to separate Madge and the Bird for nap time. We put Bird in the usual playpen because he a gentleman and is able to sleep through most noise. Madge we put in her crib upstairs because she hates naps and will wake up if she hears a cricket fart. Fifteen minutes later, success! Madge and Bird are full speed into dream land. Twenty minutes after my victory Madge is up squeaking, the Bird has rolled over in his playpen and is chewing on his arm and Lilly is sound asleep on the freshly folded laundry piled up on the couch. I’m really getting the hang of this parenting thing.
