Kiernan's favorite word--aside from Ma-Ma, of course--is the word 'ball'. As in..."BALL!!!!!!!!" The louder it is said the better. Everywhere we go he seems to see a ball. Even when we think he must be mistaken, he turns out to be right and there is a picture of a bear holding a ball hidden behind a curtain or something. Christmas time was the perfect time for him, as there were decorative balls everywhere. Good thing I had him with me so much of the time, or I might have missed many of them.

The picture of above comes from our visit to a school called CHIME, over the holidays. CHIME is a wonderful charter school that Wendy works with, but the purpose of this visit was Kiernan motivated. We are enrolling him in the infant/toddler program at the school, and they invited us to join them for their holiday party so we could meet the teachers and get a feel for the program a little bit. When they told us Santa Claus was going to be there, Kiernan decided to come along.

When we arrived, Kiernan showed his enthusiasm by being asleep.

He fell asleep in the car on the way to the school, and even walking into a room full of excited kids meeting Santa did not rouse him from his slumber. Kind of makes me feel silly for being so quiet during his naps. Before he was born, Wendy and I were determined that during nap times the household would run as normal. We would talk normally. Run the vacuum cleaner. Set off firecrackers. Practice our drum solos. In short, follow our routine. And he would therefore learn to sleep in spite of noise. We had visions of long, relaxing meals in restaurants, our baby in his infant carrier napping blissfully all the while, impervious to the din around him. Other parents would stare enviously. The bold ones would venture to ask, "What is your secret?" The Nobel Peace Prize was sure to follow.

It's funny how much flies out the window once the baby actually arrives. What I didn't realize when we were making naptime plans, is that naps are not really for the baby. Oh, sure the baby needs the sleep. But he'll get it sooner or later. Nope. Naps are for the parents. The idea of losing that twenty to thirty minutes became too scary to contemplate in the early months, so we tiptoed around the house and chased the cat, cursing in a whisper as she woke him up time and again. We turned off phones and shushed visiting relatives. We became the Guardians of the Nap.

Then we took him to see Santa and he slept in the guy's lap. Nice.

He did wake up, eventually, to find himself on a couch with his mother and Mr. Claus. This was a fairly disturbing moment for him, but then he received a toy train and found the ball pit and all was well with the world.

It was after Santa left that Kiernan found the ball pit pictured above, and I knew that whatever reservations I may have been able to drum up for taking him to the infant/toddler program after the New Year were pretty much moot. Any place that has a huge pit of balls is a perfect place to spend a morning. That other kids will be there to play with, well that's just gravy.