Of Mice and Moons

I take a few slow, deep breaths. My voice is a heavy whisper. Meditative and measured. A ritual of love.

Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown

To someone unfamiliar it might sound dull or perhaps stilted. Not a song but a kind of incantation. My voice breaks and drops out in its lowered register. I take my time. Sometimes I am simply tired. Sometimes I am experimenting with a tone of voice--even in the measured breaths between the words there is a kind of drama. Sometimes I just relish these quiet moments. These are the things that I hope will stay with her.

I am a creature of few habits, but this particular routine started 13 years ago with my first baby. Before she was even big enough to hold the book herself I would read Goodnight Moon every night--sometimes twice--before bed. It was light and fun and I would point out the mouse making his way around the room. Eventually she would track him herself.

Time marched on and I carried on the same with my son. Reading (again, sometimes twice) nightly. He was always just as willing to sit and listen as his older sister. It was a bond.

Time pushes forward and the habit gets skipped. Kids get older. The moon and the mouse lose their magic. The book, however, survives many purgings of the bookshelves. It is, to me, an icon of their babyhood. A talisman against the growing up and the forgotten memories. It is a moment, lived over and over and over, that I am loathe to let go.

And then came baby. There were new board books, new toys, new trinkets. And a new place for an old friend. The mouse and the moon return. But this baby will not have the book. She will hold it, and bite it, and wave it around but it shall not be read. She won't sit for it. And I was briefly heartbroken.

This was my thing. This was the ritual. This was the habit I kept, the memory maker, the keeper of moments. This book holds a lot of emotional weight and so much of my heart as a mother to my infants. It could not be denied. I decided that I would not read the book; I would recite it.

There are 7 years between my son and my youngest daughter--many years since I had laid eyes on and read it--but having read it so many, many times (sometimes twice a night) it came back a bit easier than I had expected. But this baby was a different baby, so the game was different.  She would hold the book, gnaw on it, throw it, all while I recited it. The words came back as they had been: light and fun. And after a time she would sometimes sit for the book and look for the mouse. 

This is our well-worn but well-loved board book. It became apparent that she was not an easy sleeper. Even cosleeping--which I did with both of my older ones--never imparted a depth of sleep in her nightly rhythms. I have many times referred to her as "my crappy sleeper."  She needed very much to be parented to sleep and occasionally (at almost 4 years old) still does. As she transitioned (not terribly smoothly) to her own bed, I would lay with her a lot. In seeking something rhythmic to slow and soothe her, and set a pace for sleep, I once again turned to the Moon. I started reciting again.

I would lay with her in the semi-darkness of the room and I would drop my voice to a thick, deep, almost-whisper: "In the great, green room......"  And so it began again.

It is no small thing to me that my girls share a room. Thirteen and three are a tough mix and very trying some days, but it truly makes my heart explode to know that my oldest is laying in the loft bed above us, listening to the same words she has known since she was a newborn. And although the words are the same, they are different. The lightness removed, the game set aside. This is no longer about the mouse and his antics. This is "a quiet old lady who is whispering hush."  This is about goodnights and the quieting of all the things. It is about a kind of peace, even if it is only the temporary peace of sleep.

In six weeks she will be four. Overtired and restless, she asked me again tonight: "Can you sing Goodnight Moon?" A ritual that is epic in my heart and one that I never refuse.

These are the moments she will remember.

I take a few slow, deep breaths. My voice is a heavy whisper. Meditative and measured. This is my love.