Naps, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

Not my naps, although I love a good afternoon catnap as much as the next girl. No, I’m talking about when my baby naps. It is a truly, TRULY glorious thing to tiptoe out of her room in the middle of the day, with her blissfully sucking her fingers and dreaming about toys or boobs or whatever else she dreams about in the crib behind me.

Little Miss R was born on Halloween, 2013, so she is now nine and a half months old. The focus of this blog is about living and working in the theatre, not about adventures in parenting; but the truth is that those two worlds significantly intersect in my life right now. R has accompanied me to production meetings, technical rehearsals, and Shakespeare in the park performances. She has played patiently with her toys while I typed away on the computer, and sometimes not-so-patiently, too. We make it work.

Since she was born, she has had a tenacious aversion to naps. What can I say, she’s stubborn like her mother. Many days only yielded one twenty minute nap; the days she took even one real, full-length nap were days of celebration, and anomalies at that. Like happening upon a unicorn, or a nap-leaf-clover. So it is with not a little exuberance that I can say we seem to be hitting our stride in the nap department, finally. Two naps per day! On a schedule! Usually 90 minutes apiece!

But what does this have to do with theatre? In my case, a lot.

There will always be too much work and not enough time, and as stubborn as I am, I’ve been pushing through and getting the work done — at least the most critical work. But inserting an additional two or three hours back into my day is going to make a HUGE difference, both to how I approach those most critical items, and to my ability to tackle everything else. I can finally catch up on reading that stack of plays (many of them meaty Shakespeare scripts) awaiting my attention. I can better focus my critical and creative thinking skills on preparing future directing projects. I can more effectively update websites, manage social media campaigns, and do the multitude of other non-creative tasks that support my theatre work.

Of course, R woke up while I was writing this post and has been playing on the floor (pretty patiently, I might add) while I wrap things up. Right now I have to go stop her from eating my shoes.

Until her next nap, my friends.