Sleeping Beauty

To continue with the Jake photo theme we have going lately.... !  He's a beautiful sleeper.  And I mean that in more than one way.  As you can see, he's awfully darn cute while he's sleeping.  But out of the 3 kids in the house, he's also my best sleeper.  You put him down for a nap, doesn't matter what time it is, and he falls asleep within 10 minutes.  He sleeps and sleeps and sleeps... he doesn't play in his room, skip his nap, or wake up after 30 minutes.  He doesn't sing songs or talk to himself or take 4 bathroom breaks while he's supposed to be napping.  Not that other kids around here do that... :-)

Not only is he a good napper, but he's also often the one asleep first at bedtime.  Not every night, but I'd say 70% of the time (not to be too exact, right?!) he's out first after lights out.

And, as any parent knows, a child that goes to sleep nicely is a beautiful child!

Viva, on the other hand.... She doesn't sleep half the time at nap time.  And she is NOT normally first asleep at night.  As those two facts might suggest, the best time to catch her sleeping is in the morning.  She's always dead tired and last kid up!  Often she's only half asleep when she does choose to nap, and when you say hello at the door she pops right up.  But once in a while all her late nights and lack of naps get to her and then she refuses to wake up even after being dragged out of her bed and throw in the sun on a chair (see below).  Viva is the one mostly likely to cover her head with a pillow and say "go away, I'm NOT getting up yet" if you catch her at the wrong moment!

Bentley.  He's starting to grow out of naps, but I wish he'd keeping taking them.  I can definitely see a behavior difference on the days he decides to just "try" to go to sleep.  He requests a fort (normally on the big round couch in Grandma's room, but on weekends sometimes on our family room couch near where Daddy is hanging out), climbs in, and attempts to fall asleep.  He succeeds probably 1/3rd of the time.  Sometimes he succeeds despite his best attentions.  Caught in the act of sleeping while still sitting up: