Where Have All the Naps Gone?

The mini has been napping less and less frequently. Even though she still totally needs them. By 6:30 or 7:00 every night she's a complete roller coaster of emotion. And she can't control her urges. Her smiles get wobbly. Her voice careens between high-pitched whining and rock-concert speaker volume. Her laughter turns from sweet and gleeful to hysterical and tear-filled in less than a heartbeat. There are tears and tantrums and the inability to turn it off. She starts throwing things and hitting us. And she's so tired that she actually has trouble sitting still. She starts walking into walls and tripping over her own feet. It is one of those situations that sort of breaks your heart but at the same time you can't help but laugh at her - and then feel slightly guilty about it. But if I try to let her sleep late in the afternoon, by the time she wakes up it will completely ruin her nighttime ritual. I've been trying to get her to do some quiet activities, like coloring or reading to herself, but her attention span gets so short that it doesn't keep her for long. I even turn everything off in the afternoons (even though I don't usually have radios or tv on during the day) and take her to her room to rest. She hops out of bed within 5 or 10 minutes, totally ready to do more - even though I can see the red rimming her eyes and know that we're headed down that road again. And since she only sleeps about 9 or maybe 10 hours a night (if I'm lucky), I really can't put her in bed before 7:30 at the earliest or she'll be up before dawn the next day. It is a struggle to stay sane (for all of us). By the time DH and I can get her calmed down and in bed, we're too exhausted to even try to have a "date" or anything. Anything beyond "how was your day, dear?" is often beyond our abilities. I hope she stops resisting naptime soon and just goes back into it. Or rallies to the point where she doesn't really need a nap and starts sleeping longer at night. That would be good, too.