Like a Rock

Adolfo gets happy
Originally uploaded by killy.

Adolfo IV is asleep, hard. He skipped his nap today. Ezra, his cousin who is about nine months older and doesn't nap, showed up around 11 this morning. They zipped around the house and then into the backyard. Once everyone had eaten their fill of hamburgers and hot dogs the kids took their tricycles and pedal cars out into the cul-de-sac where they ran and fought, and reconciled, and scooted around till they were dripping with sweat. Adolfo was happy to have his cousin and his best friend, cole, around. After we could no longer stand the heat, all the kids ended up back at our place. Ezra left first. After that, Adolfo and Cole shared a cooling bath. They both relaxed in front of 'James and the Giant Peach' till cole finally had to go home.

Adolfo is pretty easy to diagnose. He was sooooooo tired. The telling is in the movement of his limbs. He's got pretty good control of himself, but when he's tired he just hangs like an old shirt. Of course he also whines, pouts, throws himself about, clings to his mama, and loses all sensibility (what little there is in a two-year old.)

Not long after she went in to put him down, i heard her in the bathroom. "He's out." I knew that instantly, not from what she said, but how she said it: not in a whisper. Normally we tiptoe around for the first half hour he hits the bed. Any noise will rouse him. The second she finished his bedtime story he was snoring.

It has crossed my mind that skipping naps may be the thing to do in order to get him to sleep at a normal time, but the trade-off (clingy, crying, tantrum throwing) is too high i think. Can any of our older child-experienced readers sound-off on this?