Relaxing Doesn't Make Babies

A good night for a picnic

December 9, 2012 — 12:54 am

After we put Kate to bed we could hear her singing and talking and thumping around for an unusually long length of time. “Did she poop today?” I asked Den. He told me he had not changed any poopy diapers. Neither had I.

An hour after that, as I was attempting (and failing) to nurse Ember to sleep I heard Kate start crying. Den went in to see what the problem was and sure enough it was a poopy diaper. She needs to work on her timing a little bit. After a change she was wide awake and pointed to the living room with an “Go out dere!” We were still up so we just turned on some cartoons and let her play with her blocks for a while.

She asked for crackers and Den went and got her some. She was carrying a pillow around, then would put it on the ground and sit on it. All over the room she’d do this. I thought it odd, but children are nothing if not odd. It wasn’t until Den went to get her a cup of water that Kate pointed to the floor next to her and said, “Picnic! Mama picnic!” She even went and grabbed me another pillow to sit on. So there we were at 11pm, sitting on cushions and sharing a bowl of crackers in an impromptu picnic. She was very pleased about the whole thing. I’m not even sure where she got this idea of a picnic, it seems a little out of the blue to me but she’s been coming up with a lot of pretend scenarios lately.

Years from now, after I have done many horrible things in the eyes of a child and later a teenager, I hope she looks back and remembers days like these when I had picnics with her in the middle of the night.

2 responses to “A good night for a picnic”

  1. betttina says:

    What a sweet memory! Mine has been pooping about an hour after bed too. During the day, child! But it is super-cute because if I ask if she pooped, she turns to look at her bottom and says, “Bottom! Poop!” She’s 19 months and just figured out the P and B sounds last week. I love it.

  2. Deborah says:

    That is so cute! Sometimes, things like that end up being the most fun times with kids.