Nap Girl

"Nap Girl," was Drew's nickname for Rachel whenever she woke up from an afternoon nap when she was a toddler. She almost always slept the perfect amount of time -- long enough to give us time to do the things we couldn't do when she was around, and just when we started to miss being around her..she woke up.

Lately Rachel has been falling asleep, deep asleep, in the car on the way home from preschool. It's about a 20-minute drive, and unfortunately she ends up sleeping until around 7:45, which means we eat dinner late and get to bed late...I've got to break this cycle.

When she wakes up she's really disoriented and weepy, and needs a lot of cuddling to soothe herself back to normalcy. Today she asked a really weird question after waking up: "What's in the banana?" It sounded like something she would say in her sleep. That gave me an idea for a children's book: about a kid who falls asleep in the back seat of a car, and everytime she does, she returns to this weird world with fantastical creatures, and then just at the climax she wakes up, extremely disoriented, to a mommy who chatters on about dinner and bedtime, and after this happens month after month she can't tell which world is real and which is a fantasy.

Nah. Probably too scary for kids??? Or maybe not.

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Cute Rachel sayings of the last few days:

"Mommy, I don't wanna give away you!" Rachel said at dinner two days ago, still weepy from waking up in the car after a nap. "I don't wanna give you away even when you're old!'

I'm glad to hear that, honey.

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"You have to eat your salad, Mama," Rachel said on Tuesday at dinner.
"Why?" I answered.
"'Cause you'll get sick. You don't want to waste your salad. Want to write that down?"

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"We like the stegosaurus," she said tonight at dinner.
"Because....?" I said.
"He doesn't do anything," she said. "He just strolls along."

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Rachel was upset tonight because Sadie, one of her little friends, made Rachel be the little sister while Sadie was the big sister during a game of theirs. I'll give Sadie credit for at least offering Rachel two options: play the game or stay out of it.

"She wants to be powerful because she doesn't want ME to be powerful," Rachel said tonight. "And that's what makes me not want to play with her."

"Powerful"?????