For months following her birth, silent acid reflux (or, as my husband insists, "heartburn") made it difficult to get Baby Cara to sleep. It turned out, however, that a reading of Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown would magically lull my little one to sleep. I hadn't grown up with Goodnight Moon and, for those of you unfamiliar with it, an unseen narrator tells us about objects in the “great green room”: a telephone, a red balloon, a picture of the cow jumping over the moon. Then we say goodnight to many of the same things.
There are wonderful images: the moon rises, the light dims, the clock moves forward as the bunny says his (her?) litany of goodnights. The pictures alternate between black and white and color. A soothing symmetry to the "goodnights" lulls both baby and tired momma off to sleep.
And yet, by chance, two of the pages were stuck together the first 30 odd times I read the book. One night, I blearily unstuck them, to reveal lines that I hadn't seen before: "Goodnight nobody, goodnight mush."
Goodnight NOBODY?!?! Margaret hadn't told us nobody was in the room before! WAS nobody in the room before? Where did nobody come from? In fact, the last bit of the poem says goodnight to things we haven't been introduced to: stars, air, noises everywhere. Forgotten and unmentioned are the telephone and the red balloon. To sleep-deprived, exhausted me, this was profoundly unsettling, and I made up a blogpost about it even before the good folks at the Conglomerate asked me back.
It's a good thing my maternity leave only lasted three months and then I was back safe at my job, where overthinking isn't a big danger.
Goodnight Glom. Thanks for having me.
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1. Posted by Gordon Smith on July 14, 2008 @ 0:02 | Permalink
Goodnight, Usha. Great last post. Enjoyed them all, as always.
2. Posted by Jeff Lipshaw on July 14, 2008 @ 3:42 | Permalink
I hope Gordon has the good sense to bring you back soon.
3. Posted by Michael Risch on July 14, 2008 @ 5:18 | Permalink
Goodnight Moon...and some baby Zantac does the trick.
4. Posted by Lorra on July 14, 2008 @ 11:13 | Permalink
Hi Usha ,
I like your POEM rather then just a post .
The chat between Momma & the Goodnight Moon .
Great one.
With best wishes ,
Lorra.
5. Posted by The Mommy Blawger on July 15, 2008 @ 10:53 | Permalink
While there is "nobody" in the picture of "Goodnight nobody, Goodnight mush", there is NOT "nobody" in the room, obviously. Although, since the quiet old lady whispering hush is a night nurse and not mom or grandma, perhaps he (the bunny) is making a commentary on her social status. While she is not literally "nobody", she is a figurative nobody. Or perhaps he feels abandoned by his parents and perceives himself to be alone.
6. Posted by Jeff on August 7, 2008 @ 20:16 | Permalink
Usha, I spent a great deal of time trying to discover who "nobody" was. It is clearly the mouse who is sneaking nibbles from the bowl full of mush (which at the end of the book is no longer full). When the mouse is almost seen by the bunny eating the mush he quickly hides behind the bowl becoming "nobody". The secret is in the pictures, oten adults want to read something deeper into it.
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