“I Don’t Like Choices!”

The struggle to get Kina to nap on weekends continues unabated, as I (the stern librarian) unveil tactic after fruitless tactic to convince her to just lay down for just one second. Part of the reason I’ve been driving so much on weekends is because it’s the last remaining unchallenged nap zone in Kina’s life. I’ll drive twenty-five minutes away to grab lunch with her on a Sunday, because I know it will take twenty-five minutes to get home, and it only takes twelve for her to pass out if I’m driving on side streets. Stop looking at me.

Yesterday, though, I was not in the mood to drive. My movement situation is such that I either never leave the house in a day, or I drive for an hour at a shot; this is not at all how this city is meant to be lived in, and so we spent Monday morning just walking around the neighborhood, grabbing a sandwich to eat outside, and enjoying a good long swing. In so doing, I was also trying to exhaust my child so thoroughly that she’d find a good home nap irresistible. I ran around the playground with her, played hide-and-go-seek among a cluster of incongruous roadside yurts, and chased her as she scooted down countless long sidewalks. I got my exercise.

I did not get my nap.

Upon arriving home, Kina consulted her book of weekend patterns and decided it was time to watch a movie. I offered her instead a choice:

1. You can take a nap and then watch any movie you’d like, or

2. You can listen to music with me and not nap

“Okay let’s not nap and watch a movie, though,” said Kina.

“No, if you choose not to nap, we can listen to music instead.”

“Nononono wait wait hang on. Lissen. I will watch a movie and you will take a nap.”

“If you watch a movie, you will also take a nap. Otherwise, if you would like not to nap, we can listen to some music together.”

At this point, she made what Laurea and I have called “the Lala noise”—a grunt unique to Kina and her grandmother, expressing disdain and lost patience. She narrowed her eyes at me and slid her entire body off the couch, stomping off to our bedroom, where Laurea actually was taking a nap, to demand satisfaction. After explaining to Mommy that Daddy was making her make choices and that she doesn’t like choices, she skulked back into the living room and agreed, finally, to listen to some plonky music and draw with me.

An excellent choice.

dad