A Few Minutes of Peace

I just put Ben down for his afternoon nap. His morning one took place while I was running errands with him and Rachel and was abbreviated - only about 45 minutes. He usually naps for a good hour and a half to 2 hours at a time, so I'm hoping he'll take a nice good long nap this afternoon.

Rachel is watching an episode of "dive, Olly, dive!" so I actually have a bit of quieter time to myself. (Considering that the TV is on in the background, quieter is relative, but it's still a little time to myself.) Some days it's hard to find that time. Rachel had no school yesterday, but she and Ben both slept in remarkably late for the two of them (just before 9am for him, about 9:10 for her), then we kept ourselves busy throughout the rest of the morning with the routine and reading books and doing a Valentine's Day craft for her grandma, who we were going to visit in the afternoon. She watched some TV in the afternoon then turned it off without my even asking (!). We had some lunch after Ben woke up, then went on our way to visit grandma.

The day actually went very smoothly considering that there was no school and, therefore, no outlet for her energy. I had gotten a good amount of sleep, which made me more patient and less irritable. James wonders if Rachel feeds off of me, either way I am. That makes sense. It always seems like she pushes things to the limit on the days when I'm least equipped to handle it. But yesterday she was great, and we had an enjoyable day with just the smallest amount of whining. Ben didn't fuss too much, either, and was really happy to see his grandma.

He's currently objecting to going down for a nap. Considering he only napped for about 45 minutes earlier while I shopped, I'm hoping he settles down and has a good nap this afternoon. Otherwise, Rachel's dance class tonight will seem like an ETERNITY. She's in "Dance-A-Rama I," which is a combination of ballet and tap. They stretch, then do ballet for about 20 minutes. Then they all run out to change to their tap shoes, and they work on tap for about 15 minutes. Last week, the parents got to go into the room and see what they'd been working on, since it was the end of the 5-week session. She starts a new 5-week session tonight; after that, there will be the recital class starting in March, with a recital in June. Let me just say that 8 little girls wearing tap shoes are noisy.

I seem to be very rambly today, so with that, I'm just going to kind of lamely wind down and get back to doing something else. Ooh, or I'll post photos of Ben's first haircut!