Vacation nap scheduling gone haywire

I was prepared for many of the pitfalls of fatherhood. I was not prepared for the delicate nuances of scheduling my child's naps.

Vacations are when this problem emerges like a roaring lion. And speaking of this majestic, mane-laden beast, how about the zoo?

The tantrum my Crazy Toddler threw at Seattle's Woodland Park Zoo on our vacation yesterday will live in infamy. But who could blame him, considering the events leading up to the aforementioned meltdown?

1) As is the case on almost any trip in which a small child is involved, CT's sleep schedule has been thrown through a loop crushed like a Dontrelle Willis fastball. Three days ago he didn't sleep at all until bedtime, which is never cool. Never, ever cool.

When he finally did get a nap, it was too late because he'd reached the point of no return. This is that awful spot where you're so tired that you literally don't have the energy to nap. It's like the Twilight Zone, except you're too fatigued to enjoy the trippiness.

2) Yesterday CT didn't get his morning nap, due partly to the off-kilter schedule of the day and partly to his particular brand of crazy (He is truly, truly crazy. He should start his own cologne line called "Homage to Howard Hughes."


3) The zoo was basically CT's Everest. If I could do it over again, I would pay a rickshaw driver to take my son from exhibit to exhibit. Instead I pulled the rookie move of letting him walk around. It was my unofficial vote for CT to become ridiculously tired and bump into unsuspecting grandmothers in his path.


4) I had the audacity to tell my son what to do. He wasn't impressed.


5) I tore him away from his new best friend, the carousel. His first taste of sweet, sweet spinning horse delight was too much for his sleep-deprived mind to take. A minute later I heard hideous screaming. I looked back and saw a familiar young man kneeling in the middle of the park walkway, yelling like Nancy Kerrigan.


Soon he was sprawled face first on said walkway, writhing in the treachery of carousel wonderment had and lost.


The tantrum lasted for several minutes. His subsequent nap lasted for many more. 


In the end, I didn't learn anything about nap scheduling that will help prospective dads. But I did live through The Great Zoo Tantrum of 2010 and live to tell about it.