March 19, 2015

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.



14 comments:

  1. This is so beautiful! I remember reading that book to all three of my babies. It just goes way too fast!!!!! My last baby turns 10 in a few weeks, ouch!!!!!!

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    1. Double digits!! Don't blink, right?
      So glad that you have known this sweet book too!

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  2. Thank you, Tamara! It has been on my mind to write this for a while. When my daughter asked me the other night, I did it as always, and it felt so perfect, I immediately wrote this afterwards.

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  3. Oh so beautiful! Reading to my three is one of my greatest joys as a parent. They are 10, 7 and 5. With my two oldest, we spent a lot of time, the three of us, snuggled under a blanket, reading book after book. It happens less with my third because she is the third and because it is less her thing. But I still read to each before bed and I find it calms me as much as it calms them.

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    1. I was always so thrilled and proud that my oldest two loved to sit and read. Both are avid readers today. Almost 4, my little one enjoys it but not with the same enthusiasm they have always had for it. She has always been less inclined to sit still for anything though. Just her nature, I guess.
      I have found, though, that this is as much for me as her too. Even when I don't feel like it, it holds a power over me, so we both get something out of it.

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  4. Mine are 18 and 20 this year and our copy is still on my bookshelf. It's the only book my rowdy boy would lay still for at night.

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    1. I used to nanny before I had my own kids and I remember seeing this book and wondering what was so great about it. Everybody had it on their bookshelf. I never appreciated it until I read it (over and over) to my own kids. There is something soothing about the rhythm and repetitiveness.

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  5. Such a beautiful tradition for both you and your children. I love that your older daughter and younger daughter both get to experience it in a different way at these different stages in their lives. Hold onto those precious memories. And the book :)

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    1. I'm quite certain it will be on my bookshelf when I'm old and gray (well, grayER). Unless one of my kids decides to take it for their kids one day.

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  6. I don't ever remember reading that book when I was younger. I don't really know why because there were many books I read and were read to me when I was younger.

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    1. It really is a classic. Although I remember seeing it as a nanny years before I had kids and I never really thought it was that great. The lens you see life through is different when you have kids of your own.

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  7. This is such a beautiful piece. So, so beautiful. <3

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    1. Thank you, thank you, thank you! It's ALLMYFEELS. <3

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