"I'm gonna go see Dr. Finklestein and I'm gonna tell him we have a whole new bag of issues. We can forget about mom for a while."

I feel I should preface this with the warning that no one has ever been mean to me, very few people have ever said anything that could be taken as judgmental or negative. This is entirely my own mental issue. Of which there are plenty more. I am That Mother. The one that doesn’t allow anything to interfere with naptime. I try to explain, but it all feels like excuses. I feel judged and looked down on. It isn’t only naptime; “She still eats baby food?!!” YES. Because she won’t eat real fruits and veggies, and I don’t want her to get ass cancer!! Also there’s that strong tendency to get constipated and then shit in the bathtub. Do you know how much cleaning is involved with bathtub shits?! Happens all the time. She’s a self imposed vegetarian and won’t eat any form of protein except yogurt, no eggs, no beans, nothing. It took 3 grown ass people to convince her to try 2 bites of uncrustables today and she refused to eat anymore. Each meal is a battle people, and I’m doing my best. Ugh. I’m going to have to talk to the doctor about this aren’t I? But I digress. Naptimes. My reasons that sound like excuses to my own ears when I tell them to people; First and foremost, I feel that everyone should know I went 10 months without sleeping for longer then 2 hours at a time. Yes, there were a very few times when her dad or Angel MiL took her. But I exclusively breast fed, and she had problems eating, and would eat mostly when she was half asleep. At night. By the time she started sleeping through the night, I was….off my fucking rocker to put it mildly. I love sleep. When she doesn’t get her nap, she wakes up at night. Numerous times. Loudly. Not every time, but often enough I can make the correlation. I don’t like that. It feels like this is my fault for some reason. Like I should have taught her how to sleep through the night already regardless of what kind of nap she had. I don’t know how, but apparently everyone else does. Second, we live 4 very curvy miles from the nearest no store having town. And 20 curvy miles from the nearest store having town. Sometimes when J is driving I want to fall asleep, I can’t very well blame her for wanting to as well. When driving close to nap time she falls asleep in the car. She then wakes up as soon as the car stops. Stop lights, signs, our arrival home, whatever. Once she has woken up, she feels that nap time is over! “Wtf mate? I slept already; I’m not doing that shit again!” And therefore misses nap. Please see reason 1 for what happens next. Perhaps if we lived in the city with all the stop lights and such, this wouldn’t be an issue. But of course, we live in BFE. Third, she’s almost 2. She has her beasty moments when she’s gotten the right amount of sleep. But when she hasn’t? Oh lawd look out. I can relate, and do not blame her one bit. Fourth, she sleeps in her crib with white noise and black out curtains. This means I can’t just put her down on your bed in your bright sunny room and leave her be. If she ever fell asleep, which she wouldn’t because hello?! New place! Things to see and mess with and eat and hide from you forever and ever! She would roll off the damn bed to begin with. As for the rest of it, one more person tells me ‘I trained so and so baby to sleep through anything’ I will lose my shit. We tried that and SHE WOKE UP. I don’t know how many times it takes to ‘train’ but I am obviously a quitter, and instead have given her tools to help her sleep as opposed to waiting for her to figure out how to snooze through the apocalypse. Also, I have black out curtains and white noise too. So eff off. Example of recent experience; we drove 3 hours, arriving at our destination at 12 pm. 30 minutes after lunch time and directly when nap time should begin. Hells to the no she didn’t sleep in the car! We left an hour after she got up that morning! We fed her lunch as quickly as we could, watched some of what we there to see, but mostly chased her wild ass all around the parking lot b/c she was not going to sit quietly in the building. Again, I see all you people thinking my child should behave. I can feel it. Perhaps we should utilize timeouts more aggressively? I don’t know. We leave 1st destination to arrive at 2nd about 10 miles away. Of course she fell asleep, and of course she woke up when we got there. At 3 pm I said to my friend we were going to have to leave very soon, it was well after naptime. My friend said; “Why?! She’ll sleep when she’s tired.” Really? She will? I look over at my exhausted baby as she whines and throws a toy at another child, and I doubt this to be true. But again I feel like this is my wrong doing, that I should have the skills to teach my child to sleep when she’s tired, regardless of where we are and what we’re doing. Did I miss this class? Is there a handbook being passed that skipped me? So, I don’t leave the house until 3 pm, after she has woken up from her nap. Unless there is someone with me to aggressively keep her awake until we get home and can put her down to sleep. I don’t know how you other miracle mamas do it any other way…so perhaps you could share your magic? Clue me in, or at least tell me it’s not so bad being this anal.