Paper Parents Pop Quiz #6 (PPPQ6)

The time is 3:45pm. You're alone with Avery and you're starting to watch her progressively melt down before your eyes. She has had a crazy active day and the chance that she'll make it to 7pm without emotionally disassembling is between slim and none and slim is leaving the townhouse.

You've got all the warning signs. Rubbing her eyes. Starting to overreact to little things. Usually the cut off for nap time is 2:15pm. You're way past that but you'll be staring in a remake of "Misery," if she doesn't sleep and you'll play James Caan's character. The down side is that by napping her and keeping it to 30 - 45 minutes you'll be waking her out of a deep sleep and be inviting Armageddon. Guaranteed she's a bear for an hour after that. Lock it in. But from 5:30pm on she'll be the better for it. A quandary to be sure...stick it out or put her down for a short nap....what do you do? And by the way the wife is out running errands so as much as you'd like to pass the buck and go cycling that's not on the table...

A) Against your better judgment you put her down for the nap. The FULL nap. Let her sleep till about 5:30pm and hope somehow she isn't thrown completely off her sleep schedule. Fat chance she'll go down before 9pm...

B) You put her down for the nap. BUT you wake her up around 4:30pm. She'll hate your guts for awhile and life will suck but she'll be ready to go down by 8pm...

C) Stick it out. Life is for the bold and you'll boldly hope she'll hang on till 7pm without an emotional apocalypse hitting North Boulder.

D) Start randomly calling sex hot lines and don't worry about it for a second. You're busy, so she'll figure it out on her own. If you see her slumped over on the couch with drool dripping from her mouth you'll guess she fell asleep. If not, who cares anyway, mom will be home to deal with the aftermath in 20...

And the answer is...?

B Holy crap she was a bear. She was snoring loud enough to shake the bed when you started waking her at 4:30pm. 10 minutes to get her out of bed. 10 to get her downstairs. Another 10 to get her to stop crying. You played your favorite new sing-along, John Denver's "Rocky Mountain High" and that finally seemed to snap her out of it...you sang "Rocky Mountain Hiiiiiiiiigh" and she responded with "Colorado!" at the top of her lungs. It was actually a pretty sweet moment. And by 5:15pm she was back on her "A" game. Today you made the right choice...