The art of the power nap

An indispensable weapon in the armoury of any parent is the Power Nap, defined by wiktionary as "A short sleep taken in the daytime in order to refresh a person and generally terminated before deep sleep begins so as not to leave the sleeper drowsy." I credit my transition to motherhood as having been the driving force behind my learning this skill. The actual encouragement (=NAGGING!) came from my husband. When Ads was born, S took over the responsibility of putting him down for his naps. It was understood that if S was at home, then it was his job to put Ads to sleep. It didn't matter how busy he was, or even if he was working; because what used to take the rest of us atleast half an hour, would take him 5 minutes, no more. He would literally saunter out of the bedroom after putting Ads to sleep, raise a supercilious eyebrow at us lesser mortals who could not accomplish this laughably easy task, and go back to whatever he was doing. Sometimes, if he was tired and had nothing better to do, he would just place Ads on his chest and both father and son would snooze for a bit. S would get up after 20 minutes, fresh as a daisy. He would keep telling sleep-deprived me to take a nap too. I would excuse myself, saying I'm too busy, I'm working, I don't have the time etc etc and S would say: "Oh but you DON'T need the time, it's just 20 minutes!". The thing is, if I went to sleep, I'd pass out for a minimum of 1 hour and I could never understand how it was possible to wake up in 20 minutes and still not have a heavy head and an irritated mood.
Anyway to cut a long story short, S nagged me so much after Y was born that I decided to give it a shot. It changed my life. I know, sounds too dramatic; but believe me, a nap in the afternoon makes such a difference to my day. It alters my entire outlook. I feel refreshed, more active, infinitely energized. I know I can stay up late at night and hit the books and not be all bleary-eyed and drowsy. And it only takes 15-20 minutes. 
I told a new mommy the other day to start taking power-naps. It's a killer app, like the ability to clean, lubricate and diaper a wriggly baby's bottom in 10 seconds flat. Now that's matter for another post :))