Saturday, June 2, 2012

Parents Are Trained Ninjas

Never before have you seen such stealth, such skills, such quiet-ensuring acrobatics as those of a parent with sleeping children.

DO NOT MESS WITH THE NAPS, YO.

Even children who sleep peacefully through every night, through alarms and loud movies, through dropped glasses and neighbor's parties- even the most sound of sleepers- will wake up at the slightest blip of noise when it is nap time.  Drop a bobby pin, baby's up.  Ankle pops when you take a step, toddler's awake.  Sink drips, and nap time is over.

It is for this reason that parents develop super-skills in order to facilitate uninterrupted sleep.  We know every creaky stair, every idiosyncrasy of each squeaky door handle, each popping floor board.  We know how avoid every possible noise in the household for a full 3 hours in order to protect nap.  I have seen parents backflip, snatch objects from midair, and slither through their houses like Hattori Hanzo.  SKILLS, I tell you.

For some reason, however, it is during these precious, precious hours that all things noisy happen.  The big kid is finally down for nap, except- OOPS!- it's the recycling truck, and it's glass pick-up day!  The baby finally settles down, and then- uh oh- the UPS man rings the doorbell.  Both children miraculously fall asleep (!!) at the same time (!!!), and then things on your counters and shelves start spontaneously committing suicide, jumping to their deaths onto the tile mere feet away from both sleeping children.

Gah.

If only the ninja skills were transferrable.  And the garbage trucks would read the dirty looks you give them when they show up at 1:30pm.

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