Happy Easter to all who celebrate! And hope all “my peeps” are having a good Passover! As a multi-ethnic, interfaith family, we celebrate it all! Religious aspects of either holiday aside, the real meaning of these holidays (to me) is about being with family and friends. If we teach Maya nothing else, I hope she knows how loved she is, and how steeped in familiar love our different but equally important traditions are. Now to today’s post …

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As a new mom, older, wiser women will tell you, (among a myriad of other things) “Nap when the baby naps!”

Well, Maya is 2 1/4 now and in those 2 1/4 years, I have successfully napped … zero times. Not even kidding. It’s not that I haven’t tried ... it’s just that 1) there are a million things I always felt I needed to tend to during that quiet time and 2) I’ve never been able to turn it off. [“It” being the brain that thinks 24/7 about what it could be doing/should be doing/wants to be doing/feels guilty about not doing.]

I was never a napper before Maya came along anyway (naps seemed like a giant waste of time to me back then — haha!), but ever since becoming a mom, I have literally longed for and dreamed about the day when I could just turn “it” off and lay the heck down and sleep! It just seemed too big a fantasy to actually come to fruition.

Until today, you see.

Today, the conditions were juuuuust right.

Maya went for her nap easily. It was gloomy and dreary out, making for comfortable sleep conditions. Luis was prepping to paint around the house (and I’d packed us full of activities all weekend so today was literally the only day he could do it before the carpet people come later this week!) so I knew he was going to be busy anyway. Rocco was lazing in the kitchen, per usual, and had just had a long walk. And I’ve been physically exhausted lately — between early gym wake-up calls each morning and getting over a nasty sinus infection and cold.

So I laid down on our bed, Luis covered me in a blanket, and I conked out for a good 90 minutes. You heard me. 90 minutes!! For a girl who never naps — even when sick — this was huge.

I woke up refreshed and feeling invigorated. So much so that when I heard Maya pushing on her door and singing to her stuffed animals a half hour after I woke, I didn’t think, “Oh no, I still needed to do XYZ” …  but rather, “I’m glad she’s up! Let’s play!” I’d been laying in complete silence those 30 minutes (another first — no TV, no phone …) and her little voice was music to my ears.

Lesson learned: It’s not always easy for moms to carve out “me” time in the form of a nap but sometimes, it’s truly necessary. I’m really grateful for that opportunity today, and hope to do it again sometime soon!

How about you? Are you a napper?