Bowls full of mush
I am reading my daughter Goodnight Moon for the 400th time. You would think something like this would be annoying, but it has become like a prayer. Turning these well-worn pages of our beloved text, I could say all of these words by memory — and sometimes I do.
The first few times you read Goodnight Moon, it is not nearly as groundbreaking. At first, it is just a book which names objects in a little bunny’s vicinity: mittens, kittens, socks, clocks. There’s an older lady bunny in a rocking chair, knitting something. There’s some abstract art hanging in little bunny’s room. It seems kind of…meaningless. This is the most famous children’s book of all time? you think to yourself, smugly, sleep deprived, unhinged. It’s only just OK.
But then something happens.
As time goes on and your mouth forms these phrases again and again, not only do you realize the book and its author (Margaret Wise Brown) are kind of punk rock, but they are celebrating the sanctity of daily rituals and the secret world of joy that resides within them.
I refer to it as secret, although it may just be downplayed. There is no shortage of commiseration on the internet or IRL about the struggles of parenting and the endless to-do list of each day. It is so much more exhausting and all-encompassing than I thought. I don’t know where I’d be without having good friends I can talk with about those not-so-glamorous parts. But I’ve found that sometimes parents can keep the other side of parenting hidden. It’s something a bit like magic, but it’s disguised as obligation.
Here’s the thing: the seemingly mundane tasks that take up each day as a parent can come across as stressful and exhausting. There are so many things to accomplish in quick succession: Morning Time and Breakfast Time and Finding the Missing Sock Time. Wrangling Them Into a Carseat Time. Providing Distractions from a Tantrum Time (this takes up a substantial amount of time). Nap Time. Lunch Time. Before-Dinner-Witching-Hour Time. Trimming Nails Time. Washing Sippy Cups Time.
Yet these ritualistic tasks that look like obligations become the very thing you treasure most because you realize they carry within them immeasurable, inexplicable joy. Picking up the sippy cup that’s been thrown on the floor for the 40th time, you look up to see your child laughing hysterically. Reading your child their favorite book, they snuggle in and let out a contented sigh which signals that you are their safe place. Watching them use a spoon to eat their bowl of (infant oatmeal) mush for the first time, you see a visceral pride in the ability to do something for themselves. When my daughter turns the pages of a book, or says good morning to our dog, or touches my face and laughs — these moments have been the happiest of my life. Each task is its own little container to watch her evolving before me, becoming more of who she is—and it’s the honor of my life to witness it.
Before becoming a parent, I never could imagine the resilience and strength it takes sometimes to put aside your own ego and get through each day. There are tantrums and inexplicable crying jags and endless moments of anxiety. But more importantly, I never could have imagined the incredible joy I could feel at these simple rituals.
We watch the room grow darker in each frame of Goodnight Moon, until it’s finally time for bunny to sleep. Goodnight comb, goodnight brush, goodnight nobody, goodnight mush. We are counting off each magical step until our eyelids begin to droop. We have done all we can today; let us rest. As we close the pages of the book, I am both relieved and sad. My daughter will be going to bed now, which means I can finally shovel some cold leftovers in my mouth while cleaning up goldfish crumbs off the floor. But as soon as I put her in her crib, I miss her.
Goodnight noises everywhere.
From the piercing cries of a temper tantrum to the ecstatic laugh at watching a grasshopper fly into the air, time is marked by these noises, this scenery, these rituals, reassuring us there is order and beauty to life even when we feel like it’s gone missing. When we slow down to notice what our days can contain, we are transformed into people and parents who can make bedtimes magic and storytimes sacred. And I think Margaret Wise Brown knew exactly what she was doing with that.
