go the @!!&!#@%! to sleep

All of us who have been parents of infants and small children--hell, all of us who have even watched other people's infants and small children--know the incredible frustration engendered when, OMFG, you are so tired and they are wide awake. It is a nearly universal experience in child-raising, I think, unknown only to people with freakishly well-sleeping kids and women in those hunter-gatherer tribes where the baby is wrapped to the mother 24/7. (And even some of those hunter-gatherer chicks must occasionally think, "Can I not take this goddamned sling off and have a moment's peace to myself?")

In the spirit of this, a gentleman named Adam Mansbach has written a fairly brilliant takeoff on the "Goodnight, Moon" genre of children's books. You know, those books in which the storybook child says goodnight to various things and people until they are asleep at the end of the story and, theoretically, if you read it to your little cherub, they should be too. Well, Mr Mansbach is apparently aware of the gap between theory and real life.

I was apprised of his literary work some time ago, and I thought it was an amusing concept, but it was not until today when I heard, via someone else's blog, the book being read aloud by Samuel L Jackson, that I grasped its true brilliance. By which I mean to say, I laughed my fucking ass off. Listen for yourself.



This is particularly piquant to me because of what I do for a living. I may have mentioned, I need my little patients to sleep while I am testing. This has led to many many occasions where I am sitting at my computer, looking at a toddler three hours past their regular naptime or a preschooler who's been up since 4 am doing everything in their power to not give in and to indeed stay awake. And often in this situation, what is running through my mind like a mantra is, "Jesus Christ, will you please please PLEASE just go.the.fuck.to.sleep." I do not expect that to change anytime soon.

Now, however, the voice in my head will be Samuel L Jackson's.

Goodnight, moon! Goodnight, bitches!

xoxo