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<\/p>\nI generally consider myself to be a pretty easy-going person. It usually takes quite a bit to get me really angry. But my inner rage erupts out of nowhere when Lucy’s nap gets interrupted. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I noticed this the other day when our truly wonderful UPS deliveryman, Cesar, happened to ring the doorbell at the 45-minute mark of Lucy’s morning nap — right when she is most susceptible to being awakened. Lucy usually sleeps for about two hours in the morning, but the vigorously-sounded doorbell disturbed her this day. She awoke crying, and I spent 20 minutes trying to help her fall asleep again, and then another 30 minutes or so expressing my extreme frustration at our loud doorbell and insisting that we start putting up a “please knock” sign when Lucy is sleeping.<\/p>\n
p{color:gray}. Photo: It’s counter-intuitive, but this goes on the door when Lucy’s napping now: even loud knocking is quieter than the doorbell.<\/p>\n
I’d like to think that I just want Lucy to have the sleep she needs. But I know that part of my frustration is due to the fact that Lucy’s nap time is Mama’s time to do laundry, work, and occasionally relax. Lucy’s naps feel really valuable — there are some things that I can do only when she is sleeping. And while this makes perfect sense, I don’t like the fact that I sometimes feel miserly with this time, hoarding it like a troll.<\/p>\n
And then there is the lack of control. There is only so much I or anyone else can do to help Lucy sleep (or prevent her from sleeping). It is easy for me to start blaming myself or others when Lucy’s nap is cut short. “Why were you walking around so loudly?” I’ve cursed our poor squeaky “wooden floors”:http:\/\/boydsnest.org\/news\/2006\/bunny-cide\/ often in such moments.<\/p>\n
I know that naps will have new challenges in the future. One day, our sweet darling baby girl might possibly become willful and begin to resist her naps, fighting me and trying to climb out of her crib. Right now, it is easy to diffuse my anger by taking one look at Lucy’s tear-stained but smiling face. “She can’t help it, she’s a baby!” But how will I respond when she *can* help it? I hope with more grace and patience than I exhibit sometimes these days!<\/p>\n
So how can I cultivate generosity in this area? In my best moments, I go with the flow, trying to “receive the day,” as my spiritual director says. I say to myself, “The main goal is for Lucy to wake up happy and rested, no matter how long her nap is.” I suppose those unexpected sleep interruptions are one of the tools God is using to shape me into a better person. I’ll have to keep praying for the “fruits of the Spirit”:http:\/\/boydsnest.org\/news\/2006\/what-we-want\/ to be grown in my life and keep opening myself up for pruning and trimming.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I generally consider myself to be a pretty easy-going person. It usually takes quite a bit to get me really angry. But my inner rage erupts out of nowhere when Lucy’s nap gets interrupted.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":691,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-688","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-kids"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/boydsnest.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/688","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/boydsnest.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/boydsnest.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/boydsnest.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/boydsnest.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=688"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/boydsnest.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/688\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/boydsnest.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/691"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/boydsnest.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=688"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/boydsnest.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=688"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/boydsnest.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=688"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}