the longest nap

Yesterday Elijah and I went to visit some friends on the north side of Chicago. We left the house in the morning, and my plan was to be there by the time Elijah would want to take his first nap, so he could sleep in my arms. We were going to head home shortly after lunch, so he could take his second nap in his crib.

Well, as usual, things didn't go the way I planned. It took a little longer to get up north, and the humming of the engine lulled Elijah to sleep in the car for about 45 minutes (not a good nap). On the way back he once again fell asleep for about 30 minutes and woke up as soon as we got off the highway. Once we came home, I was thinking about keeping him up for a couple hours and then putting him to bed for the night early. But he curled up in my arms, put his thumb in his mouth, and I saw his eyes rolling back, which pretty much means "All I really want to do is be put to bed right now." It is not unusual for him to go down for his second nap as late as 3:30 pm, and still go to bed between 6 and 7. So, without much hesitation, I put him down, and he was asleep within 15 minutes. The time was 3 pm.

When we sat down to dinner around 5 pm, Elijah was still asleep. The dinner was over, the dishes were done, but the boy still slept. Daddy went back to church to work on his sermon, and I did some work at home, and still Elijah slept. When our bed time rolled around, he still hasn't woken up. We checked up on him one more time and turned in for the night.

We found Elijah at 6 am the next morning quietly sitting in his crib. His diaper was so full you'd think he had rocks in there, and he needed a bath pretty badly. But other than that, after 15 hours of continuous sleep, we had one quiet, happy, rested, HUNGRY baby.

All of this happened on the eve of All Saints day, so, needless to say, we did not go trick-or-treating (not like were planning on it anyway). But if someone asked us what Elijah was on his first Halloween, we could say that he was, somewhat literally, a sleeping beauty.