We faced an interesting dilemma with Jaden’s sleep schedule and our travels. Now that he’s on one nap a day, he usually sleeps from 1-3 in the afternoon. We usually start getting him ready for bed around 7, and at 8 we hope he’s asleep. The complicating factor is that Grandma and Grandpa are an hour or so from here, so timing our visit in between sleep periods was a challenge. We finally decided to put him in for his nap a little early, drive to the next state to have dinner around 4, then leave around 7 and put him to bed when we got home. 

Well, that didn’t work. He was fine for the visit, but then he slept all the way home in the car, and after that hour or so nap he wanted to stay up and play, even though it was now his normal bedtime. We just now got him to fall asleep, and it’s nearly 10 p.m. I think we’ll need a new plan for our next visit. Maybe we should just skip his nap, hope he sleeps in the car on the way there, have our visit, then get him back in the car before 6 p.m so we have plenty of time to wind him back down once we get home. 

Who knew sleep schedules could be so confusing and time-consuming.

Now- you’re probably wondering why I titled this post “Ceiling fans.”  There is a good reason for that. Jaden has taken a sincere liking to ceiling fans. It started with the one in our family room. Before he was crawling he would enjoy watching the fan go “round and round” while he played on the floor in the family room. Then it got to the point where, if the fan wasn’t on, he would point to the switch on the wall and  grunt “uuuuh-uuuuh…” until we figured out that he wanted the fan on. Now he just looks up at the fan, then looks at us, and repeats, until we flip the fan on. When the fan goes on he gives this little, contented laugh. I still wonder what he’s thinking when he gives that little giggle. It’s quite cute and I should try to get a video of it (and then I should try to figure out how to post videos to this website— but that probably won’t happen until Jaden is 18 or so…years, not months).

The funny thing about the fan-fetish is that now, no matter where we go, if there is a ceiling fan he expects it to be turned on at his requisition. In the gym/studio there are 4 or 5 ceiling fans, which he stands under one by one, pointing and grunting, insisting they be turned on.  I find myself dragging him away and explaining that the fans cannot be turned on until later. Quick – find a toy to distract him until we can close the door to the baby sitting room….

This comes up tonight because he managed to find two ceiling fans at grandma and grandpa’s and then finagled to have them both spinning. It was dizzying watching him look back and forth from one fan to the other. Sorry, baby — we only have one ceiling fan. You’ll just have to figure out your sleep issues so we can visit grandma and grandpa’s more often to get you your fan-fix.