"Naptime"

Sorry that I don't have any pictures - will work on that for the next post! I wished I had my camera on Sunday as Katie was walking around in her play high heels (that she now will not take off) saying she is a pink princess, or Saturday at the zoo when Tyler realized that the carousel might not be too bad - but, alas I couldnt' find it and/or didn't have it with me! The kids are still trying to exert their will and give up naps - we may have to transition to thinking of it as rest time rather than naptime, but either way they definitely need time to decompress. They especially needed it on Saturday - they stayed at Ray-Ray and So-So's house on Friday night (we went out for my birthday and had a great time) and apparently Tyler decided that he wanted to do a little "reading" in the middle of the night and then still get up with his sister at 5:30am! We then went to the zoo on a gorgeous day and came home right at naptime when we thought they would surely be exhausted and not fight napping as strenuously as usual. We were wrong - Tyler fell asleep in the car, but would not fall asleep after being moved and Katie didn't get to sleep until 2:00 which meant we had to wake her at 3:30 to allow for her sleeping at night! On Sunday, I was pretty certain that we wouldn't get good sleep results because they slept late Sunday morning due to the time change. I took them to Target (Lance was working) in an effort to keep them entertained and hopefully tire them out a bit, and let them pick out one small toy (used my birthday money - that's how desperate I am to find something that they enjoy more than fighting and beating each other up :)). The toys they picked out they loved (the play heels for Katie, Matchbox cars for Tyler) - the naps, not so much. I went in numerous times to tell them to settle down, to change diapers (since they have figured out if they yell that they have pooped I will come in - even if it is not true), etc. to no avail. When Lance got home he suggested we separate them (even though containing them in another room is not really an option anymore) since they were jumping and laughing and talking and really doing everything but trying to sleep. He went up to move Tyler and found Katie with her blue jeans on her head dancing around saying that she was a pirate while Tyler said Arghhh! Lance did good trying not to laugh and being stern, but it was difficult not to giggle at Katie the Clown. The move resulted in no nap at all for Tyler again and Katie falling asleep at 3:00. I wouldn't mind them skipping it if it weren't for how grumpy and irritable, at us and each other, they are when they are tired and it is so obvious that they are tired and NEED to sleep. If we ever get around to changing their beds we will probably have other issues compounding the problem so I guess I just might need to allow them to have books and lay quietly and hope that they fall asleep or at least get some rest to re-charge.

Potty training is going ok - I think I am going to try to pick up some of those Gerber cloth training pants instead of pull-ups. I just think the pull-ups are confusing them - they aren't supposed to go, but they can and it isn't really different than a diaper, etc. They are both doing really well going when you put them on, but as long as they are wearing pull-ups I don't think they are going to learn how uncomfortable it is when they don't go to the potty. Right now it just seems like they understand what to do when we put them on the potty, but don't understand why they can't just go in their diaper/pull-up if they have one on. So, everyone says that they "get" the connection once you move them into the training pants (which absorb a little more than regular underwear to make small accidents not always result in a complete outfit change) and just ditch diapers and pull-ups all together (well, except for at night in our case). We'll see - I am still not claiming no blame since I just haven't trained myself to take them every thirty minutes - that could work too :)!