A discussion with my mother has recently revealed the following surprising fact: My niece no longer naps. She is, you see, four years old now, and as such she is clearly quite grown up.
"She doesn't take naps any more? Doesn't that make her awfully...sleepy?"
"Oh, she sleeps. But they aren't *naps.* She is, she informs us, too big for naps. Babies nap. Big girls, apparently, do not."
"What about grown-up boys in New York? Do we nap? Because otherwise I have no idea what it is I've been doing all these Saturday afternoons."
"I think you can nap if you want to."
"Oh, good. I do like naps. Although I think I remember a time when I didn't. I think it was only the enforced naps I didn't want to take. You know, where they roll out the plastic foam mats and turn off the lights and it's bloody well nap time whether you want it to be or not. Middle-of-the-day naps when I wanted them were awesome, though."
"You never had to sleep on plastic foam mats. Foam mats? Honestly."
"Everyone had to sleep on foam mats. Ask my sister. She had to sleep on a foam mat too. It's a function of the pre-school. Blow bubbles in the bubble-pool, eat carrots and peas, sleep on a foam mat."
"I don't know where you get this stuff from. Is this foam mat thing like when you fell in the hole? Hahahaha!" (Side note: the me-falling-in-a-hole story is a subject of great familial hilarity that I am certain I will relate someday. The "humor" arises chiefly from my family not remembering that this incident ever occurred, so now anything I recall that they do not is compared to me, falling in a hole.)
"Yes, mom, it's just like the hole story, mainly in that both events actually happened. Anyway, what does she do if she isn't napping?"
"I don't know if we've asked."
"Ask her if she's taking a post-prandial snooze. I sometimes like to call my naps post-prandial snoozes."
"You do not."
"I do too. Well, I don't say, 'Hey, roommates, I'm off to take a post-prandial snooze, meet you for cigars and brandy later,' but I definitely THINK it."
"Where did you come from? You're so weird."
"I'm weird? It's my niece that's refusing to nap, not me."
"Yeah, and why do you think we say she's just like you all the time? Because you're both weird."
"Thank goodness for that."