Saturday afternoon, Mungee and I headed to our synagogue for a Kiddush in honor of the Rabbi's new baby girl. While there, we ran into my best friend who invited us over for lunch. I was a little hesitant to accept her invitation because it was getting close to Mungee's afternoon nap, but I decided to throw caution to the wind and see what happened.
I arrived at my friend's house and she offered to let me nurse Mungee and put her down for a nap in the porta-crib in her room. I nursed, burped and put her in the crib with a random toy and said, "Okay, it's naptime, go to sleep". I left the room and went back a few times to listen to her through the door. I didn't hear anything and was excited to sit down for a relaxing meal with friends, but Mungee had other plans. She couldn't figure out where she was, didn't know what was expected of her and just couldn't get settled. (I really don't blame her, she was totally out of her element).
I wound up bringing her to the dining table, where I shoveled food into my mouth with one hand and used the other to prevent Mungee from grabbing aforementioned food off the plate (which I had to push about a foot away from me). She was pretty wiggly and squirmy, but calmed down a bit once I started giving her sips of my water (forgot her sippy cup), challah and real baked chicken (she probably will never eat the jarred stuff again).
By the time we left, it was past 4 p.m., which is normally when she's getting up from her afternoon nap. The ride home is only about 10-15 minutes tops, and she was zonked out when I pulled into our driveway. She must have fallen asleep the moment her head hit the carseat. I heaved her inside (carseat + Mungee = approximately eventybillion pounds) and took her to her room, shut the door and prayed that she would nap long enough to not be in a completely foul mood when she woke up. My prayers were answered - she wound up sleeping for about an hour.
She got her dinner, played for a bit, took a bath and went to bed without ANY resistance. I'm always worried that if the afternoon nap goes awry we are screwed for the rest of the day, but Saturday didn't turn out so bad.
What happens when you deviate from your routine?
Does all chaos break loose, or have you been pleasantly surprised?
