Training Your Baby's Sleeping Patterns

           

            I took my bike ride a little more than half an hour early on Thursday evening. It was clear right away that I could have worn shorts, but I’ve been cautious. Once I start wearing shorts, I tend to keep them on anytime I go out, so I want to make sure the temperature isn’t bouncing up and down first. At Brock and Dundas the light was long enough for me to put my long sleeved shirt in my backpack before it changed. On the way up Brock Avenue I inhaled the aroma of the first mowed grass of the season. It’s ironic that something has to be cut down in order to fill the air with the smell of life. At Brunswick and Bloor, a little boy was jumping up and down shouting, “Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!” while a tall young man in front of him was jumping too. There was a long line of cyclists heading east across the viaduct but hardly any going west. I rode up Chester and the alleyway east of it, then up Arundel to Mortimer and back down to Danforth. There were lots of people out walking or on the patios, enjoying the last few hours of sunshine. On the way west along Bloor there was one cyclist that kept jumping ahead at the lights. Even if there were cyclists lined up, she’d go right up to the crosswalk beside the front person and sometimes jump the light. I kept on passing her but she’d pass again when I was standing still. If someone has shown that they can pass me I stay behind them until they’re moving at the pace that it looks like they’re going to maintain. It’s bad cycling etiquette to do otherwise. I went down Ossington south of Dundas through a gauntlet of fancy food fragrances as a lot of smiling people sat together on the patios.
            I stopped at Freshco, and had just locked my bike when for the second time in a row a woman’s voice called my name. It was Evangeline Marsh this time. She was just in town for a few days from Waterloo. She told me about a couple that she knows who have a new baby. He made a bunch of money on Bay Street and they’ve hired a consultant to help them train their baby to develop a sleeping schedule that’s more compatible with theirs. Now there’s a yuppie job that couldn’t have existed in the 20^th Century, back when people realized that babies have their own patterns and it’s tough if you don’t like it.