My husband and I have devised an unofficial nap schedule on weekends.  Whoever gets up with the kids that morning, often gets to take a nap in the afternoon. 

A few Saturdays ago it was my turn.  So I handed off the parenting-baton (figurative, not literal) to my husband and headed to the bedroom. I crawled under the covers, read about three pages and collapsed into the deep exhausted slumber only a parent can appreciate.

I woke up about an hour later to a lot of shrieking. I don’t think the shrieking woke me up, it’s far too common in our house to be a novelty. But I lay in bed and could just see through the open door into the main area of the house.  Daddy was calling the five-year-old’s name; over and over and over. I watched as he finally stomped off to go get her attention in person. I smiled with great reassurance that she didn’t just ignore me.

I then watched as the five-year-old and her little brother did the “bum bum” dance.  Which is really just bumping your hip against another's. Her brother practically collapses into hysterical laughter every time. What is it about butts that are so funny? Then they both grabbed small basketballs and sat on them bouncing around the room. Then it suddenly turned into a pretend toilet. Again, what is the fascination? And then, as the progression often goes, I watched with great amusement as my five-year-old took off her clothes and her brother followed suit, dropping his diaper right on the carpet. Suddenly they were now bouncing on the basketballs o'naturel. It was at this point that Daddy returned and with a loud soliloquy about the nature of germs and hot water and soap and toys, he scooped up the basketballs and instructed both children to redress themselves.

The whole thing was a very typical peek into an average 10 minutes in our lives. But the best part was, I felt no compulsion to get out of bed to help. It was my naptime.