My Kind of Hard

Another long afternoon stretched before us. We’re in the middle of a nap transition with the twins, three-year olds, going from one nap to no nap. As far as I’m concerned, this is the worst transition of all, moving from some sleep to NO sleep. Zero daytime sleep. When I told my moms group that the twins were dropping their nap they drew in a collective gasp of horror as though I’d said they’d been in a terrible car accident instead. Some days they both nap, some days one of them naps, most days they don’t nap at all. The baby (*ahem* 16-month old) naps, but he’s usually awake by two o’clock. That afternoon stretch from two until five can feel like the absolute longest part of our day.

It makes me long for a different schedule or a different type of kid. Three-year olds who still nap, kids of any age who nap for longer than an absolute maximum of two hours at a time. I have friends whose toddlers nap until three or four o’clock. In the afternoon. Imagine! I’m convinced the afternoon would be a breeze, life would be so simple if I just had kids who napped for most of it. What do they have to complain about, anyway?

Afternoons are hard. So many hours to fill, so few people and activities available to fill it with. It often feels like it’s just us against the world, while everyone else is either napping or off at school.

That’s not exactly true, of course. Our afternoons are hard right now. They’re my current brand of hard. We’ve had different seasons with other kinds of hard: the early months of twin infants, moving across state lines with twin toddlers while I was 20 weeks pregnant with our third, weeks of difficult bedtimes that take hours to complete. Kids and sleep seems like it’s own special kind of hard, since it can manifest itself in so many ways.

I have a friend whose kids nap well, very well, but because the baby’s naps don’t overlap with the toddler’s, she feels stuck at home all day, unable to leave the house because someone is always sleeping.

I have another friend whose toddler naps long and late, often waking up just in time for dinner, but then doesn’t go to bed until well after 9:00 pm.

My children wake up early, too early for me. Most of my friends have kids who sleep an hour or even two later than my own. But then it’s difficult for them to get out of the house in the morning. While we’re ready and raring to go before 8:30 am, they’re stressed to make it to preschool on time by 9:00.

It’s not only sleep that can be an issue, of course. My afternoons are hard right now, but that’s a minor complaint in the grand scheme of things. We’ve got the basics down. Much more than down. A roof over our heads, money to put food on the table, kids who are happy and healthy.

We took a class once with a mom whose son had a severe peanut allergy. The little guy couldn’t be around people who had even been near a peanut that morning. It was a mild inconvenience to make sure my own three didn’t eat something that had anything to do with peanuts on these mornings, but nothing compared to what this mama walked through every day, just trying to leave the house with her one-year old son. She said that once her husband had eaten a granola bar at lunchtime, one that didn’t contain peanuts but had been made in a factory that also processed them, and when he got home that night, hours later, and gave his boy a kiss on the cheek, his face immediately broke out in hives. From something eaten hours earlier that didn’t even contain peanuts. It’s baffling. I can’t imagine the kind of caution that mama has to take every single day. That’s hard.

I met a mom at the park the other day. She had two older kids in school and was there with her youngest two: a two-year old and four-year old. The four-year old was autistic and she talked a bit about the therapy that he went to daily. Daily. Every day she faithfully drove him to and from his appointments, with his little brother and sometimes older siblings in tow. I cringe at bringing my own three all to the occasional doctor’s appointment. The thought of attending daily therapy sessions with one kid while keeping the two-year old occupied? No thanks. That’s hard.

I have friends whose daughter was born with a heart condition. She had surgery just a few months into her life, and a month-long hospital stay where she gave my friends several serious scares. After she came home she still required medication, special formulas, extra monitoring. More check-ups and monitoring of her heart than most people will have in a lifetime. She’s fine now, a healthy toddler, but that first year of her life? Talk about hard.

Thinking of all our different “hards,” reminds me of the quote, “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.” This is so true for everyone and especially of the moms we meet. We don’t know what kind of hard other moms are going through, the ones in our playgroup, in the next checkout lane, or even our own friends. Their hard could be kids who woke up too early that morning, tantrumed all through breakfast, or pitched a fit over getting dressed. They could have deeper hards, like the allergy mom, a mom who lost a baby, the mom with child with special needs. They could be hards that are unrelated to parenting: the death of a family member, finances that are tight, a hard season at work, but things that throw off the balance of parenting and consume their mind just the same.

This afternoon will carry on, just like all the ones that came before it. Maybe we’ll message a friend, take a walk, go for a mid-afternoon smoothie run. Something to take the edge off the hard. It’s not easy, sometimes it requires all the energy, patience, and creative spirit that I have. We’ll make it through. 

After all, my afternoon survival rate is sitting right at 100%.