I’ve spent the better part of the last week reading Sam Apple’s new book, “American Parent: My Strange and Surprising Adventures in Modern Babyland.” I must admit: I’ve enjoyed it much more than I usually enjoy parenting books.

Instead of sticking to the self-important memoir, Apple (himself a first-time dad) interweaves real-life data about everything from Lamaze to attachment parenting. He interviews actual experts! He quotes scientific research! Talk about a refreshing change.

My favorite moment of Apple’s opus comes on pages 179-180, where he discusses the process of watching his son, Isaac, wake up. Quite frankly, I couldn’t have described L’s run of the gauntlet any better myself. So here are Apple’s words…

“The only thing we appreciated more than watching Isaac sleep was watching him wake up. The wake-ups would begin with the slightest disturbance of the lips, a movement so subtle that you would never notice it unless you happened to be watching him. A quiet moment would pass and then the wet tip of Isaac’s tongue would appear and disappear again, like a small crustacean peeking out from its shell and deciding the time was not yet right to take on the world. Then another, even longer, pause. You would think that the show was over. You would think that you had imagined the whole thing.

“And then, before you could catch your breath, the second act would begin with a dramatic rise and fall of the eyebrows. The eyelids would somehow remain closed but, as though the eyebrows’ rising had flipped a switch, the rest of the face would now go into a flurry of motion. The nose would twitch. The forehead would wrinkle. The fat of the second chin would quiver like shaken Jell-O. The mouth would move left then right, sending ripples through the soft pink flesh of the cheeks. The second act might last anywhere from ten seconds to a minute. It was impossible to know. The only thing you knew for sure was that you had never seen anything so fascinating in your life.

“And then, just when you were sure it could not get any better, the denouement: Like a magician’s sheet being whisked away to reveal the impossible—the assistant’s body split into two, the rabbit gone and replace by a dove—Isaac’s eyelids would flick open to reveal not pupils but two glowing white orbs. Your instinct would be to applaud but you would have no time because already the yawn would be starting, a yawn so gaping and enormous that it would seem somehow bigger than the face from which it arose. Sometimes the yawn would go on for so long that you would begin to worry that it would never end, that you would have to come to terms with the fact that your child would always have a large hole in the middle of his face. But eventually the mouth would close and the lips would seal. The face would quiet until it was as still as it had been during the peaceful sleep that had preceded the show.

“And then, and only then, would the eyelids open again to reveal two perfect brown irises staring back at you as though nothing out of the ordinary had just taken place.”