Goodnight Ana
I’ve read “Goodnight Moon” to Ana so many times that I’ve pretty much memorized it. I put my memory to the test the other night, when at a dinner party at our friends’ house, I needed to put her to bed. This is our routine every night. I read the book to her and she goes to sleep. Well, I didn’t have “Goodnight Moon” with me that night so I pretended to read it to her. I grabbed Robert’s copy of Men’s Health and turned the pages as I spoke the words, some of which I think I forgot or jumbled the order. It didn’t work, but I’m not sure if it was because she wasn’t faked out or if she just didn’t want to sleep in the strange environment. Later on, when she was crying incessantly, Aya called me into the room and asked me to try again. This time, I “read” “Goodnight Moon” without turning any pages. I just calmly spoke the words to her. And this time it worked. She fell asleep, and stayed asleep until it was time to go home.
An interesting little side note I came across. When “Goodnight Moon” was rereleased recently, the picture of the illustrator Clement Hurd was digitally altered to remove the cigarette from his hand.
