Wednesday, September 26, 2007

The thrill of the struggle, the agony of naps

I am unsure how many folks reading this have kids. Unless of course the only people that are reading this are the folks that I personally know, in which case I know exactly how many have kids.

Anyway, my daughter just got back from a getaway with her mother and usually when infants and napping toddlers travel they do a little thing we as parents like to call "getting off schedule". Which is the formal way of saying "my kid doesn't think think that they need to go to sleep when they're in dire need of it". A parent's impulse is to shield their little ones from anything that causes them pain but, if taken too far, it rapidly becomes coddling and hinders the child's ability to grow up. My daughter caught on quick to settling herself down to sleep but since getting off schedule over her vacation she has had real issues with it. This is where you have to have a "hard heart" as a parent. Running in and picking your child up out of their crib when they're old enough to comfort themselves is a real no-no. It only delays getting back "on schedule" that much more and spoils your kid in the long run to boot. Consequently, you have to be prepared to listen to many wails of anguish and much gnashing of teeth until your little one settles down. Good times.

The irony of course is that your child will probably reach a point when they really can't often make time for naps but would love to sneak one in... but I digress.

Still hashing out that comic to the best of my ability so images for today include a couple more quickie brush pen sketches-

my daughter from last Halloween...



and my wife.



The third Moreau/hyena image I did.
The next installment of Herry Poops.

1 comment:

jtruss said...

Where's the poop man?... the poop!