I was reading this article in Parents Magazine about controlling clutter with a toddler in the house. They suggested, "don't wait until your child is asleep to clean up. Enlist their help! Make it a fun game to have them help you. See who can put the toys away fastest." Yeah, right, I'm going to be able to communicate this to my one year old. I mean, maybe it was designed for an older toddler, but they kept making references to having a one year old in the house. Like, "making messes is important learning for toddlers. Don't try and keep your house neat all the time. Welcome to life with a one year old!" So we tried this before Stella's nap, and she honestly did help me put away her little links that pop together. But when I moved over to the bookcase, she was not interested in that at all. In fact, as I put away the books, she went back over to her toys to try and get some more mess going. I think I'll stick with our current system: Stella and I make the mess during the day, Tim cleans up the mess when he puts Stella to bed. It's almost like magic.
Speaking of magic, does anyone know of a magic sleep fairy? Stella has been totally screwing with her nap schedule. Yesterday she only took two 45 minute naps, and today she took an hour and 15 minute nap this morning and only a 45 minute nap this afternoon. As a result she is cranky and a real bitch to be around, pardon my French. I fear she is heading towards one nap a day and I'm in for some difficult days until she gets it all figured out. I really hope I'm wrong. How am I going to entertain her all day long? I'm not that talented! And sometimes she doesn't even appreciate my performances. I was trying to do a puppet lip sync to Spoon yesterday and she barely noticed. Although I really cracked myself up, so I suppose it's okay;)
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2 comments:
The number one way for me to entice Henry to make a mess is to put away his toys. I think they prefer them scattered about, preferably where you will trip on them. Or worse yet, where they will "go off" and play their songs or whatever when he has just fallen asleep at night and you are tiptoeing away.
I think (hope) they mean more like a 22month old. Still one, but much closer to being two. With the daycare kids, they are pretty much useless at cleaning up until at least 18 months, and even then it's a stretch.
The nap transition is a pain, I agree. We've got one doing that right now. He takes one nap two or three days a week and then is so tired that he still needs two on the other days. Hard to tell what a day is going to be like ahead of time.
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