Rip Van Winkle

There's a homeschooling group in my area that gets together for various activities. I found out that they were meeting at the park last Friday, so I made a point to be there. I wanted to meet some of the mothers and let Olivia meet some of the kids. The catch: they were meeting from 1:00 to 3:00 and Jesse usually has a nap around 2:00.

We left the house right after lunch and got to the park at 1:00. A few of the homeschoolers were there. Some others trickled in later. Olivia had a great time swinging, sliding, climbing, and running. Jesse also had a great time swinging, sliding, climbing, and running. I talked to one mother. She wasn't even with the homeschooling group! She does homeschool, after all, but just happened to pick that day to go to the park. Jesse, at 21 months, wants to play with the big kids, but doesn't understand gravity. So I spent the hour we were there chasing him around, making sure he didn't kill himself. He almost fell down the steps to the slide. If he had, he would've hit his head on 4 or 5 steps. (Sometimes I wonder whether he'll make it to his 2nd birthday!)

We left the park at 2:00, ran a couple of errands, and got home around 3:30. Of course, Jesse fell asleep in the car. When we got home, I woke him up getting him out of his car seat. I hoped he'd finish his nap because he'd been up since about 7:30. That little rascal didn't go to sleep until 4:30 or 4:45. I wondered whether I should just let him stay up until bedtime, but we were planning to go back to town that evening and he really needed a nap. As it turned out, we didn't go back to town. Suppertime came and Jesse was still sawing logs. Olivia's bedtime came and Jesse was still out. (He was breathing - I checked.) I began to worry he'd get up around midnight and want to play. Finally, hubby and I went to bed. I didn't hear a peep from my little boy until 7:30 in the morning. I couldn't believe he'd slept for over 14 hours!