Nap Math

We were almost home from our six hour drive yesterday when W said, "Hmm, I should have taken a nap today."

"You did," I said. "A three hour nap."

"Ah," he said. "Then I guess I'll go to bed at 11:30 tonight, not 8:30."

"Good math," I said. "But no."

I worked for that nap, and the work was not done so that W could stay up late and delay my highly anticipated sleep. I kept driving and held in a desire to urinate so fierce that my bladder ached and I felt my chest begin to feel bloated. We all know that sleeping kids wake up immediately when the car pulls off the highway. We all know: do NOT stop on a long trip if your children are asleep.

I also resisted the urge to, as I have done before on trips without another adult in the car, slip a diaper into my pants so that I could both keep driving and pee. That's right, I will piss in a diaper while driving but I will not leave my children unattended in the car at a roadside restroom.

(Oh come on, don't tell me I'm the only person besides Lisa Nowak to use diapers as an aid to drive right through those pesky bodily function detours. I learned this technique, or shall I say, was exposed to it, when I lived with six guys during college (yup, even shared a room, and a bunk bed with one. I had the bottom. Other than the T man sleeping in the bunk above me, I never slept with any of them (really)). Anyway, they grew tired of basic nights out drinking in boring old Santa Barbara, and found it necessary to come up with games such as:

"Let's-wear-Depend-undergarments-and-drink-beer-all-night-and-see-if-they-leak."

I loved those guys, even when I woke up to the Depends hanging from the kitchen "chandelier" in the morning (they cleaned it up) and even when they chewed up bites of burritos, spit them out and rolled them into "snakeballs" to feed to Jonathan's pet boa constrictor (yes, the boa lived in a cage in the family room. He also fed on small mice). Let's just say I didn't need a sorority in college. I had a fraternity of my own. Luckily, I grew up with a brother and I've always liked snakes. And the interpersonal drama was so...absent. Ahhh, boys. It is no surprise to anyone who knows me that I gave birth to two male children.)

Anyway, I had gone to great lengths to allow W to sleep, but this did not mean he would be allowed to stay up for 3 extra hours. I had him down by 10pm. Score one for the Dubs.