31 minutes

Naps are a good thing, right? I used to look forward to Maggie's nap time, that blissful hour or two where I had the house to myself, quiet. She gave up regular napping -- that is, in-the-bed-room-dark naps -- last April, and there was much weeping and gnashing of teeth (on my part). She still napped occasionally, namely when forced to sit still, like sitting in the car seat or on the couch watching a movie.

But it's reached a point where I'd almost rather she didn't nap at all. Because now, whenever she falls asleep during the day, she's awake muuuuuch longer than I'd like her to be at night. Not only that, but she's a royal grump for about an hour after she wakes from the nap.

So it was with much anxiety that I roused Maggie at 5:45 p.m. today. She had fallen asleep while watching Ratatouille, so she obviously needed the sleep. She woke up hungry, and even though I was cooking dinner, I consented to giving her a banana. Or, to be clear, I should say I consented to Bobby giving her a banana. Which was the WRONG method of delivery. Thus began a downward spiral resulting in a tantrum so loud and so intense the neighbors surely thought we were pulling her fingernails out one by one. You know how it is ... sobbing so powerful she could barely breathe, barely eek out the words she was trying to say: "IgaspwantgaspMommygasptogaspwalkgaspovergaspheregaspand [pause for a few pitiful breaths] bringgaspmegaspmygaspbanana." The ridiculousness of it all was just ... ridiculous. Who freakin cares whether Mommy or Daddy brings the banana??

An unreasonable 3-year-old, that's who. And when it gets to this point, no amount of logic in the world will convince her to see reason. It didn't matter that I was in the middle of cooking dinner, it didn't matter that Daddy was right there, willing and able to deliver the snack of choice. (The situation further deteriorated when Daddy dropped the banana--the very banana she'd refused to take from him. Instantly, it was: "Igaspwantgaspyougasptogaspfixgaspit!! Igaspdon'tgasp wantgaspitgaspbroken!" She wasn't going to eat the banana, but goshdarnit she wanted it intact.)

And the title of this post? 31 minutes? That's precisely how long this little eruption lasted.

A trip to the potty, juice instead of water, and Mommy delivering the banana (after she calmed down enough to ask nicely) were *all* it took to stop the madness. At the end of dinner, she instructed Bobby to put his leftovers "in a baggie so you don't lose it ... or get it hairy ... or squish it ... or stick it to the wall ... or hammer it." (OK, so that really had nothing to do with my story about the tantrum, but I thought it was funny.)

In other news, she's becoming pretty proficient at the computer mouse -- the real computer mouse, not the one that came with her toy computer at Christmas. Our mouse has many, many buttons on it, so I put a sticker showing Maggie where to click, and she's doing really well. Right now, her favorite online game to play is this Wiggles matching game: http://www.thewiggles.com.au/playground/gameplay.asp?ID=13