The Full Suburban: Young children, ‘cereal friends’ and nap time

This week, in addition to our usual circus act, the Dittos are babysitting two small children ages 3 and 1. Their parents are a young couple who have watched our kids a couple times while we were on vacation, and all the payment they asked for is that we return the favor at some point. We are of course thrilled to be able to pay them back even a little bit, although it hardly seems a fair trade: our six kids versus their two.

I must say, even though I did the toddler-baby combo for more than a decade, I forgot just how much work it is to take care of two small children. The lifting, the getting down on the ground, the bending over, the going up-and-down stairs to grab sippy cups and blankets and a million other things, not to mention the need to actually watch the children, lest they tumble down a staircase or decide to eat Legos for lunch – it’s all-around exhausting.

I’m a little out of practice with this whole very-young-children thing, but it’s bringing back some memories. When I had a gaggle of small kids of my own, my favorite part of the day was nap time because that meant I would get a much-needed break in the middle of the day.

Our three oldest children were born while my husband was finishing school at the University of Washington; our young family was definitely not the norm on campus. But we found our home in UW Family Housing surrounded by other graduate students who had small kids just like ours.

There was an unspoken law among the parents in that neighborhood: Call anyone – or heaven forbid, knock on their door – between the hours of 1 and 3 in the afternoon, and you would lose an eye. Those were nap-time hours – sacred hours – where a parent could sit uninterrupted for more than 30 seconds and eat a bag of chocolate chips without hiding behind the refrigerator door.

As each of my children transitioned out of napping, I would have him or her do “quiet time” instead because I still desperately needed those peaceful hours more than the kids ever did. I would put the baby down for a nap (because there was always a baby) and then take the toddler/preschooler up to their bedroom to play by themselves for a bit, ever so gently reminding them that they were not allowed to ask me for anything for at least one hour.

“I love you so much, but if I see you again before 2 o’clock, I’m going to call Santa and cancel Christmas” might have been a threat used by a lesser parent, but definitely not me.

We learned the ropes with our oldest child, Lucy. Preparing her room for quiet time was like preparing a prison cell at San Quentin. Everything (besides toys and books, of course) had to be tucked away, blocked or removed from the room entirely, or she would find a way to use it to her advantage.

One day, she kept coming out of her room asking to play with a friend. I bargained with her that I would bring her some friends if she would just stay in her room for 30 more blessed minutes. I poured a little dry cereal into a bowl and brought it up to her bedroom in our tiny student-housing apartment.

“Look, I brought you cereal friends!” I told her, knowing full well how lame it sounded. “They’ll keep you company during your quiet time. And then when you’re done, you can eat them!” The Hail Mary worked. “Cereal friends” became a staple in our quiet-time routine for each kid, and it always bought me at least 10 extra minutes.

Those days seem like a lifetime ago. Sometimes I mourn that they’ve passed, and other times I couldn’t be more grateful that we’ve come out on the other side. I’m sure in 10 years, I’ll look back on these days and wonder how in the world I did it. The days are long, but the years are short; is it nap time yet?

Julia Ditto shares her life with her husband, six children and a random menagerie of farm animals in Spokane Valley. She can be reached at dittojulia@gmail.com.