Emma has had a weird schedule going on all week. She stays up late, sleeps late in the morning, and takes her nap around 5:00. The last three nights when Steve and I have gone to bed at 12:30 or so, she has stayed up to watch the Food Network (which is her new favorite pastime). She's up right now, reading books by herself in the living room, and tomorrow she'll probably sleep until noon again. I'm all for letting someone choose his or her own schedule, but I'm wondering what's going to happen when we have to actually be somewhere in the morning. I can't say I blame her, though. I would totally stay up really late and sleep late every morning if I knew Noah wasn't going to wake me up and if I didn't feel like a lazy slug for doing so.

I think I'm partly to blame for her weird schedule, due to a recent epiphany I had. For ages, I relied on Emma's nap as the only time when I could get anything done. I looked forward to it every day and was always disappointed when she woke up because my "me" time was over. I have now come to realize that I no longer care if she takes a nap or what time she goes to bed. She is self-reliant enough that I can still do a lot of what I want whenever she is awake. In fact, she often asks me if I want to sew because she wants to go down in the basement and play and she wants me to be down there with her. So, now that I am not fervently awaiting any time when she will be asleep and also because she is generally very pleasant to be around, I don't really make the effort to get her to sleep. Is that bad parenting, I wonder?

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