quiet rest time

when jane was smaller, and slept in a crib, we put her in her crib everyday from 1:00 to 3:00 for nap time. now that she’s in the big girl bed, we can’t keep her in her bed during nap time, so nap time has been re-named to “quiet-rest-time.” every day from 1:00 to 3:00, jane is supposed to play quietly in her room with the hopes that she might just lay down and have a nap.
but she rarely does.
instead, she has some epic play times. I often hear her having dramatic adventures with her toys and shouting things like,
“OH NO GUYS! WE HAVE TO SAVE HER! WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO! I’LL HELP YOU! I’LL HELP YOU!” sometimes it gets so loud that I go in and check on her. each time I do, I see toys, books, shes, hats, and pieces of costumes everywhere. I’ll say,
“is everything alright in here?” and jane always says,
“I’m just in here!” and then she shows me the door and continues with her adventure. after quiet rest time, at 3:00 on the dot, jane walks out and says,
“MOM! IT’S THREE-ZERO-ZERO!” and then deanna goes in, helps her clean up and then gives jane a snack.

so yesterday, Deanna had to go to a meeting at 3pm. she asked if I could come home early and play with jane. and of course, I said yes. so at about 2:45 I went into jane’s room and interrupted her adventure and saw the epic mess that she made. I said to her,
“hey- at three-zero-zero do you want to go to togo’s with me and have a snack?”
“have some CHEETOS?!” she answered.
“yeah.” I said.
“why don’t you start cleaning up your toys so that we can leave right at three-zero-zero.” like clockwork, jane opened her door at 3pm and said,
“DAD! IT’S THREE-ZERO-ZERO!” I walked in to help her clean up her toys and found her room SPOTLESS. every book, toy, shoe, hat was put back neatly in its place. it was so perfect that I was shocked. I wondered if she secretly had mary poppins powers and could clean her room just by snapping her fingers. I told her how impressed I was. I said,
“I’m going to put on my shoes, can you get out of your comfy clothes so that we can put on your outside clothes?” by the time I got back, she had her shirt and shorts off and a new pair of shorts put on.
this girl was motivated.
so I felt that all of this deserved some cheetos.
she’s growing up so fast.