A Jackson Nap Triad...

On weekdays Jackson goes to work with me to the Palace Theatre. I work 12ish to 4 p.m. in the office and Jackson takes his afternoon nap in the handicapped bathroom that I tricked out for him. He has a pack & play crib, a fan for white noise and a cool night light that turns 4 different colors. I put him in his bed at about 1 p.m. and he sleeps till 3:00 or 3:30. This is our routine and it works well.

Well, yesterday Jackson had a rough afternoon naptime. I put him down as usual and heard him in there talking for a bit before he was quiet. Not unusual. Then a new Sun City couple came in to learn about the Palace and sign up to volunteer and usher. We gave them a tour of the theater and Sonja talked them through the ins and outs of volunteering. About the time they were leaving, the lady excused herself to the restroom. I assumed that she went into the ladies room because we had just toured her and showed her the restrooms.

She didn't. She apparently discovered we were out of toilet paper in the ladies room and decided to use the handicapped bathroom. The room where Jackson was sleeping. The tiny room set up with a crib and a nightlight and fan. Unbeknownst to us, this lady opened the door, turned on the light and upon seeing the crib and baby, did not falter in her quest to urinate. She proceeded into the room locked the door behind her and used the toilet. Jackson woke up at some point and stood up in his bed crying. I heard him crying and wondered what the problem was. When I went to the door, the lady was just coming out. She left the light on, let the door close and happily asked me "Is that your little boy in there?"

"Uh, yeah," I said. I was nearly speechless. "He was crying just a minute ago." She said as she left with her husband. If I had been capable of speaking at that point I would have replied "Yeah, he woke up from a sound sleep to find an old woman with her pants around her ankles peeing not a foot from his crib. He may be scarred for life."

Ok. Maybe I wouldn't have told her that but I sure wanted to. WTF? I cannot fathom how oblivious she must be to have done such a thing. The only thing that I can think of is that she saw the crib, but didn't see the sleeping boy inside it. Somehow she missed the sleeping baby and didn't know he was there until she was already peeing. Ha! Imagine her horror when the boy jumped up and started yelling. It must have literally scared the piss out of her!!!

The boy survived the incident. I turned the light off and left him alone. He settled back to sleep; he probably registered the peeing woman as a nightmare and not a true event. But then came the cleaning crew. As usual I told the 3 ladies that he was sleeping and they could skip cleaning that bathroom. We go through this every week. Except there was a new girl and since they often don't speak English, she didn't get the message. I caught her opening the door and hurried to stop her. However, this young immigrant, unlike the Sun City Lady, was savvy enough to see that crib + fan + nighlight may just = sleeping baby. She eased the door closed and little nap damage was done.

To complete the anti-nap triad, his fan and nightlight got unplugged on him. There isn't an outlet in the bathroom, so I run an extension cord to the outlet right outside the door. The third cleaning lady came by and unplugged his fan and nightlight to plug in the vacuum instead of using the open outlet right below it. It was at least 15 minutes till I noticed it. Sigh.

Poor boy managed to get in a little shut-eye, I think. But he was cranky in the evening. Whether that was due to the interrupted nap or to flashbacks of urinating grandma, I don't know.