Urban legend

To become a parent, a first-time parent, at least, is (I think) to become a little obsessed with sleep. My blog posts over the last few months nicely illustrate this fact. This obsession can lead a parent to seek out information about getting one's child to sleep from a variety of sources. (Recent quote from my mother: "I really don't remember there being this many books on how to get your baby to sleep when you were little.") During such a quest, one often hears tales, legends if you will, of children who put themselves to sleep, children who "sleep through the night" at absurdly young ages, children who nap for hours at a time, etc. The other day, my friend told me she had witnessed a mother simply lay her baby on a blanket, at which point the baby put its thumb in its mouth and promptly fell asleep without further effort by its mother. Ha! I laughed in disbelief.

Today, the doorman buzzed to tell me our kitchen cabinets were here. As a brief aside, the ever-expanding list of "extra" things currently in our apartment is as follows:
-microwave
-utility bowl and drain for sink
-sink
-faucet
-cabinet pulls
-stainless panel for dishwasher
-range
-kitchen cabinets in 27 boxes (some large, some small)
It's like the Mary Poppins bag of apartments over here. Anyway, while waiting for the cabinets to be brought up from the service entrance, I made pathetic attempts to rearrange the apartment, trying my best to reinforce the delusion I currently harbor that "everything will fit" and "it will all be fine." Evelyn was on her activity mat, playing with her toys. I could hear her grunting a bit, but she wasn't really crying, so I continued pondering where I could possibly fit 6 dining chairs so I could clear the dining area for cabinets. A few minutes later, I realized she had been quiet for a while. I peeked over to see her lying on her back in the sun, thumb in mouth, asleep.

And the saddest thing of all? I had to wake her up (she wasn't completely zonked, so it wasn't that difficult), because I knew she wouldn't nap for very long, lying on the floor in the sun, once the cabinets started coming in, and I wanted her to actually get a decent nap instead of a mere catnap. Poor sleep-deprived child.