Goodnight, Sun

Grace’s bedtime reading includes the book above almost every night. She insists on holding the book by herself and turning all the pages but does allow me to “Mommy read! Mommy read!” For those of you who are too old to remember the details of this book from your own childhood and are not yet the night-time readers to your own offspring, there are two moons in the book, the full moon outside the nursery and a crescent moon in the painting above the fireplace. Grace only identifies the crescent moon in the painting as a moon and claims that the full moon outside the window is actually the sun. She is unpersuaded by the fact that there are stars in the sky, the little bunny is going to bed, or any other clues about the time of day. When we get to the page with the eponymous text and we read, “Goodnight, Moon,” she responds, “Sun!” I sometimes try to convince her of the lunar qualities of this particular round orb, but she asserts, “Sun!” In fact, she won’t let me continue to the part about the cow jumping over the moon until I acquiesce that yes, it is the sun. I need to figure out how to explain the phases of the moon and celestial dynamics to a toddler.

It’s very near full moon right now, actually, and it is really delightful to show Grace the moon outside. With Rob working another string of night shifts, I’ve been doing Abbey’s evening walk with Grace in the Ergo and she is very excited to see the moon. These days Grace seems amazed and enchanted by discovering things in real life that she has learned the names of from books or TV or what have you. When it gets warmer, I think a trip to the zoo might be in order for her to get to see the animals from what is perhaps her favorite book.

Speaking of night-time, the night before last will go down in the record books as one of Grace’s top 10 worst ever. She woke up a bit after 1am and was totally awake until almost 5am. Rob was at the emergency room working a night shift so I was left to my own devices. Nothing seemed to do any good to get her back to sleep-- I brought her to bed with me with no success, let her wail in her crib for a while (maybe I’m not as committed an AP mama as I claim), and finally just let her run around our upstairs while I lay dazedly in bed. Such misery... The next day I was so exhausted that I felt weepy and depleted. There was no opportunity for a nap so at 4pm, unable to face the rest of the day without some chemical help, I had a nice cup of coffee. One good thing about not being a regular coffee drinker is that when you do have some, it will perk you RIGHT UP. Perk you right up into slightly frenzied, energetic mania. I felt much more able to cope with the rest of yesterday but then I could not go to sleep last night. I guess 4pm is too late in the day for me to have coffee. Another night of less-than-ideal sleep! Oh well, soon I shall return to a sleep equilibrium. And of the two adults in our home, I am certainly not the one with the most cause for dissatisfaction with my sleep.