by Laura Falin posted in Life

A lot has changed in our house in the last three years. We've slowly moved out of baby-toddler mode and into actual big-kid mode. I've stopped carrying a diaper bag. We no longer have baby wipes in every room of the house. I even have a teenager (I almost have two). But one of the biggest game-changers has been that my youngest is now in school.

Do you realize what this means"""
It means we no longer have to wake babies up from their naps and cart them, crying, to pick up their older siblings in the afternoons. For seven long years, I put babies and toddlers down for naps and prayed they'd sleep well and deeply until precisely 15 minutes before school got out when they'd wake up refreshed and happy. I did mental calculations -- "If we eat now and get to bed, we have exactly enough time for a nap before we have to get back to school."
Sometimes I'd decide to push through instead and have the younger kids nap after pickup, which meant they'd be up until one in the morning. Or worse, they'd fall asleep on the way to picking everyone up. I once heard comedian Ray Romano joke that he kept a squirt bottle in his glove compartment to shoot at his kids and keep them from falling asleep in the car and there were a few times I seriously considered it.
My husband's job often allowed him to be home for school pickups, and I remember actually sobbing when he called to say he'd be late, and I'd have to wake the younger kids to go ...