Goodnight moon

When Evelyn was about 2 months old, her Nana and her Aunt Taryn came for a visit. Nana gave Evelyn a copy of Goodnight Moon, and I've been reading it to her almost every day ever since. Of course, in the beginning, I may as well have been reading to Puddin. But she's definitely taken a special liking to the book these past few months. Even though she's been "reading" this book the longest, she doesn't seem to get bored of it and will even pause sometimes between page flipping to look at the pictures and let me finish reading the words.

During our Mendocino trip in June, the evening before the bad night of sleep (or lack thereof) that we had, Evelyn didn't feel like going to bed when she was supposed to. So we stayed up a bit longer and I read Goodnight Moon to her. One of the best reasons to read this book to her is her reaction to certain pages, as you can see in this video. (And by the way, even by Evelyn standards, she's flipping through the book really fast in this one.)



What, I ask, is so irresistably lickable about these 2 pages? She still does it, to this day, like clockwork.



The head-shaking to "Goodnight nobody," on the other hand, was short-lived. A few days after we returned home, Evelyn really shocked me when she started shaking her head as I read the 2 lines before the "Goodnight nobody" line. She did it twice that morning, and then one more time when I was reciting the words without the book! (She hasn't done it at all since.) I realized how much she is actually listening and remembering, and John and I have been trying harder ever since to clearly tell her about what we're doing or what things are. I think we've been trying all along, but that incident made it clear that we'd been underestimating her cognitive abilities.

On a related note, I think Evelyn is pretty lucky that it's me reading Goodnight Moon to her, and not Christopher Walken: