Wishing You a "Nappy" Holiday!

The sky is gray and the temperature, currently hovering just above freezing, seems much colder because of a brisk west wind that has the branches in front of my window doing the Centertown Shake.  Occasionally, just for good measure, a snow flake drifts by.

Hooray!  It’s perfect holiday weather!

“What holiday?” you might ask. 

Wake up and smell the roses!  And then roll over and go back to sleep.  Monday, March 11, 2013 is NATIONAL NAPPING DAY!

National Napping Day was created, unofficially, in 1999 to help people adjust to the time change due to Daylight Saving Time. 

Want to create your own holiday?  You are not alone!  Petitions are currently circulating to declare the following days holidays:

1.      September 11

2.      Chinese New Year

3.      The Monday after the Super Bowl

You can start your own holiday petition at https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/ 

Any petition that generates 100,000 signatures is entitled to an official White House response, even if it calls for the creation of a “Death Star” (moon-sized space station accessorized with a death ray capable of destroying a planet with a destructive light beam).  Not surprisingly, the White House nixed that project, estimating its cost at 833 quadrillion dollars.  It’s not surprising that the White House nixed it, just that cost was cited as a deterrent.

National Napping Day came at a perfect time for me this year, and not because of the time change.  We moved our clocks up and back already this year when we went to Florida for a few days so that’s no big deal.  What made National Napping Day especially timely this year was that it followed “Grandkids spending the night at our house” weekend. 

According to the Pew Research Center, one-third of all adults take regular naps.  That figures rises to 100% when respondents are “grandparents whose grandkids recently spent the night with them”.

Noted child expert Dave Barry made this observation about grandparents & babysitting:  “The best baby-sitters, of course, are the baby's grandparents. You feel completely comfortable entrusting your baby to them for long periods, which is why most grandparents flee to Florida”.

Not my wife and I!  Well, maybe we did go to Florida, but we came back.  Anyway, babysitting our grandkids is easy for us since we discovered that our grandkids respond to the same two basic principles of discipline that worked with our son:

1.       Consistency

2.     Bribery

Hence, the following offer was made when it was time for our grandkids to go to bed:  sleep all night in your own bed (or grandma’s) and we will go out for donuts and chocolate milk for breakfast!

It worked, though a word of caution is in order when it comes to promising things to grandkids.  As the late Andy Rooney once noted, “Elephants and grandchildren never forget”.

Happy napping day from our house to yours!