Precedence (aka why I blog)

In my sheer frustration last night about naps I checked back at my blog from when Z was the boys age.  I remembered holding him down to nap in September (when I was pregnant with they boys), and giving up entirely in December or January (when I was too pregnant to fight it).  But look what I found, written on April 11, 2008 at 2:15pm: 

Z and I have been fighting about naps. See, I like naps. He doesn't. He went a span of about 2 weeks and took only 3. He was a MESS at night (me too). Then he got back on track....Today, he is not napping. I have gone in who knows how many times, and gave him a swat for trying to get out of bed (you should have seen his face when he saw me come in, and he is half in/half out of the crib). 5 minutes ago I went in again, and what is that he is holding? Oh, his diaper. Trying not to laugh. Child. GO TO SLEEP!!!!! Now what do I hear? "Mama!! I wan get UP!" What fun.

There are several other posts along the same line over the next several months. 

Strangely, this gives me peace about the boys.  It is just how my kids work.  This is the amount of sleep they need to function (although it might not be pretty).  Most people will say that kids this age need about 13 hours (+/- an hour) of sleep in a 24 hour time frame.  The days they haven't napped they have passed out around 7 and slept til 7.  So if they nap every other or every third day, well, that is close to the average amount of sleep kids their age need. 

I am hoping that they will fall back into naps, and that they will be off and on for the next several months.  I am hoping that the next several months won't leave me gray or with no hair at all.  The main difference, of course, is that there are THREE of them fighting naps (and each other) in there.  With Z, I gave him books and toys to entertain himself.  Can't do that with these yahoos, who knows what sort of war might break out.  So that I will have to figure out.  But for the time being, I have an odd sort of calm about this nap fight.  It might be ugly for the next few months.  I will continue to be exhausted and frustrated and there will be lots of crying in this house (by all of us), but it will pass...I will try to end my saga of whining about exhausted kids, but I can't promise I will!    

Sidenote:  They didn't nap yesterday, this is what happened the day before, and now they're not napping.  I thought they were going to, since they are pretty tired, but maybe not...but I'm still hoping.