Sleepy Jude

Except for my nieces Julia and Sadie, I've never known any toddlers that look forward to sleep.  So I don't blame Jude for thinking he wants to party his entire life away.  I am not fooled, however, when he plays in his crib throughout nap time, because he then goes to bed at 6pm, and falls right to sleep, and every few days he will take an 18 hour nap, that is he goes down at 3 or 4pm and doesn't awaken till the sun rises again.  

So he still needs quite a few REM cycles.

But before I forget forever, here are a couple little tidbits about Juju related to sleep.

In May it was getting close to nap time and I don't remember what it was he did, but it was something naughty enough to warrant Time Out.  Usually he'd crash around in Time Out (which takes place in the Harry Potter closet under the stairs) and a couple of minutes later I'd go get him when he started calling, "Hi Mommy!  Hiiii, Mommy!" which is his way of starting fresh.  He still does that, like he's hit the reset button and wants to begin again with a greeting.  Cute.  

Anyway after a minute I realized it'd gone all quiet in there.  I was waiting for him to be ready to start fresh.  Another couple of minutes went by silently and I went to check on him.

I carried my little boy upstairs, gave him a big hug and kiss, and he continued his nap in his crib.  

Story #2:

A couple of months ago we were at the park with friends.  We all started packing up when it was getting close to nap time, and not surprisingly Jude was not excited about the prospect. As I walked to the car with my arms full of sand toys, Graham, my purse, keys, and a blanket for us moms to rest our bums on, Jude begrudgingly followed.  He was actually shuffling his feet and moping and whining.  I called back to him, "Jude, are you sleepy?"  With his chubby little cheeks framing his pout he answered, "Yeth."  I turned to look at him and just a second later it dawned on him, his fatal mistake.  He snapped out of the daze and defiantly corrected himself, "No!" but ah, the dye was cast.  I chuckled and loaded everything up in the car and then scooped him up to buckle him in.  He was totally giving me the stink eye but I was quite charmed by this whole thing.  As I buckled him in I asked with a huge smile, "Juju, can I have a kiss?"  And he said "NO."  He was caught, and he was not happy about it.  :)  It didn't matter though, because in any case he had been headed for a nap.  And of course he fell asleep immediately.