Every day, Vivienne takes a quiet time during Lia’s nap time. Lia sleeps for 2 – 3 hours; Vivienne reads or plays quietly in the guest room for 1 hour.

The other day, Lia happened to wake up 13 minutes before Vivienne’s quiet time ended. Vivienne came downstairs and reasoned with me, “Well, Lia’s up now, so my quiet time should be over.”

Knowing that my one-time decision would affect day, after day, of quiet times, I tried to be nice and firm when I said, “If you want to be treated like Lia, you can take a 3-hour nap tomorrow. OR, you can finish your 13 minutes of quiet time today.”

Needless to say, she quickly returned upstairs.

When her hour was complete, she came downstairs with this adorable apology. (The artist explained that I was the middle curly-headed woman who received the Blue Ribbon… #1 Mommy!”) Now this is the kind of apology I need to offer more often…

“Sorry for what happened 13 minutes ago.”