Naps Suck

How much do I hate scheduling my day around naps?  I had about two years where I did not have to do this, and it was heaven.  Don't get me wrong, I love the "break" from a busy toddler when they go and crash for two hours and I can take a shower or start dinner or reply to emails or, ever so occasionally, write a blog.  But.  It's so complicated to actually achieve that "break" that it often seems like it rules the rest of the flow of the day.  Ruby will still try to take a morning nap if we're in the car or she's in the stroller anytime around 11 am.  That would be fine, except that I have to pick up Gus from school at 12:30, so I have to make sure we're doing some activity or hanging out at home between 11 and 12:30.  Otherwise, she's determined to fall asleep for 30 minutes, which in turn means that I either don't put her down for an afternoon nap (and she's a cranky clingy baby all afternoon), or I put her down late, meaning that she will then need to stay up later if we don't want to spend an hour lying on the floor of her room trying to get her down.  So my mornings are constrained by the need to be finished with all exercise and errands before 11.  Then, at 12:20, we leave to go pick Gus up.  Most days, like today, she falls asleep approximately one minute into the drive to get him.  That is great, because if I go pick him up and come straight home, she'll go right down in her crib.  If, however, I do something crazy, like I did today, and go through a drive-thru to get Gus some lunch, when we get home she will have had enough sleep that she wakes up, ready to party with Gus.  So that's it.  A 30 minute nap for the day.  What a great afternoon I'll have to look forward to.  I still put her down in the crib to see if she might, possibly, hopefully, go back to sleep.  But no.  I can hear her in the next room moaning and saying "mamamamama" in a tired but definitely not on-the-verge-of-going-back-to-sleep sort of way.  So no shower for me, no emails, no bills, but at least a little blog ...