Wiggles

I was just composing a lament to lost naptime, an ode to naptimes past, when it struck twelve-thirty and there was Mabel looking for mumeet. So we went upstairs, and lo, she is asleep. Hooray for naptime.

I will pay later on, of course, when it will take an hour and a half to get her to sleep tonight, but for the moment the respite is welcome.

I think we're just at that stage, where she needs a nap half the time, maybe less, and when it happens it's vital, but it messes up bedtime no end. So we need a new bedtime routine for the days when she doesn't nap, in order to get her to sleep earlier than 8pm, which was fine in the olden times but not no more. The trouble is that it's difficult to get her to sleep before her brother, unless she's really so fried that she has a total breakdown and I cart her off to bed on the spot.

The old routine started at 7.00 for both of them: pyjamas, game of superheroes, upstairs for teeth and stories in Monkey's bed with Daddy, after which I would be summoned to spirit Mabel away to her downy rest. The new routine goes straight from pyjamas to stories on the sofa with Daddy, and then I take Mabel upstairs for teeth and bed while Monkey gets a reprieve and a more leisurely game of superheroes and whatever else he needs downstairs.

This worked pretty well on Saturday, when it was implemented. Monkey decided that if we were having stories downstairs, we should just go ahead and sleep downstairs too, so he carted his duvet and pillow down to the sofa and every one got cosy. Nobody did sleep downstairs, mind you.

 Hm. Looks like pyjamas hadn't quite happened for Monkey at this point.

Earlier today, looking at a two-inch-high plastic horsie, of whom Mabel is particularly fond:

- Mabel, why does this horsie have no ears? Did you bite them off?
- No.
- Oh. So where have they gone?
- Well, they were wiggling all over the house, and then we went to the zoo, and they just wiggled off.
- I see.