The other big thing that happened this weekend was Clara dropped her morning nap. They take only one nap in the Big Girl Toddler Room, at 12:30pm. Birdie has been shorting her afternoon nap, so we and her teachers all though she was ready to make this transition, but this change represents an overhaul of the weekend rhythm! On this first, transition weekend, we planned a Fun Parade each of the past two mornings to help Birdie make the long march from 6am to 12:30pm. Yesterday, we went to Home Depot, the car wash, Target, Schuler's Shoes, and Whole Foods, and then played in the backyard before lunch. (A rolling stone gathers no moss, Fans.)Today, we went to the Children's Museum, and visited its Habitot exhibit for infant and toddlers four years and younger. This is a room that has different environments and attendant accoutrements on and through which kids can climb. For example, there is a little arctic enclave (slightly cooler than the rest of the room!) with igloo building blocks and jungle bells, chimes, and faux icicles to clink together. They loved it! They were everywhere. Clara twice found herself at the top of an area the only way down from which was a slide. She was set to just pitch down there and see what happened, but settled for coasting down on Julie's lap, which Birdie's loved. She walked up and down the rolling hills and scaled some steeper inclines, and slid down them if they weren't too tall. We could tell Clara was tired by the time we left by the way she got less steady on her feet, and started crawling instead of walking.
So we headed for the hot dog place Julie sometimes goes to for lunch in St. Paul where Joe and Clara has tater tots and split a hamburger ("Because I [Joe] don't like hot dogs, but I love hamburgers.") Then, Ted drove the bambini and Julie home; they all sat in the back seat. Julie tickled Clara; sang Down in the Meadow (in an itty bitty pool, swam three little fishies, and a mama fishy, too. . .) about 10 times at top volume (also we're floating down the river on the Oh-Hi-O, and a Sandra Boynton medley with Ted); and spelled words by letter, alternating letters with Ted, words selected by Joe following Julie's inaugural selection of Mississippi as we crossed it (two issi-s, Fans! it's not Miss-ippi!).
It was raucous and obnoxious. And still Birdie fell asleep. We had not wanted to be so far afield necessitating a long car ride back at exactly the wrong time, but it was so humid, we couldn't really be outside at any of our usual outdoors-y (and free) spots on our side of the river. So we landed at the air conditioned (and free) spot on the St. Paul side. Birdie roused upon our arrival home, but she let out just one protest wail before going back to sleep.
All things considered, it's all going down vastly better today than it did yesterday, which was pretty much a disaster, culminating in Joe's arrival, buck naked in the backyard. When Julie escorted him back to bed, it was clear he'd been up and all out and about for a while--he'd used the potty (we stopped to do some additional wiping), been down to the basement (Baby Doll had been drying on the table down there after her water table baptism and was at the top of the stairs), Berenice's leash was down on the ground. Oh Fans. You should have seen his face as he came out the back door and walked right over and put his arms around Ted. He was the very picture of "Hey HEY! Check ME OUT!!!!!" Such joy. It sort of broke our hearts to take him back in. Naturally, when we did, he was wailing, so Clara began wailing. We've not yet mentioned that since they went down at the same time, they spent a good while yukking it up. So yes, sort of a disaster so far as restorative sleep goes.
Joe's napping days are probably drawing to a close. He's up later at night after bedtime, and this is the second time he's gotten up from a nap-that-was-not-a-nap. But we'll see how things unfold before we introduce him to Nap Time's friend, Quiet Time.
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