{Celebrate your courage. Send me a postcard.}
My teenage boys are poised between childhood and adulthood, and the new year prepares to arrive. I find myself reflecting on letting go of the past and embracing the future.
Nothing brought this into such sharp relief recently as giving my older boy the parody book Goodnight iPad and asking him to read it for us, as he had done twelve years before with Goodnight Moon. I edited both readings into a video. Even though I saw him grow up, switching between that exuberant three-year-old “reading” the book for me and that serious young man sharing it makes my mind reel.
And seeing him make a mistake, scrunch up his face, and get the facts:
“Do dogs jump over a moon?”
I play that moment over and over. That little boy is still in there somewhere. Sometimes I miss him. But I also look in wonder at the man he is becoming.
Happy New Year!
Goodnight Moon | Goodnight iPad
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And I laughed at the "American Fried Rice." } – 
Sooo cute. I saw Goodnight IPad at a book fair…I should get it for my granddaughter. Happy New Year
Marcy, you are such a clever video artist – and this mashup is great. Will be sharing.
Thank you, Beverly
That is adorable. And your son is just as cute now as he was at three! What a great idea.
That’s sweet, Carol. I will share that with him.
OMG! As the mother of a 13 year old son, you have me a little teary right now. Such a neat video.
Thank you, Shannon. I know it’s a cliche, but they grow up so fast! I’m glad I have some video of when they were younger. And my other son’s speech–it took me a long time to figure out what he was saying. So cute.
What I love is your son’s riff on the dog/cow jumping over the moon. He recites all of “Hey Diddle Diddle”! You clearly helped him make connections in literature, even as a three-year-old. He’ll draw on that his whole life.
Thanks, I love that too. He went off on about 20 minutes of tangents, but then he kept coming back to the text that he was “reading.” So much fun.
What treasures you have with these videos – just to be able to hear their voices, see their expressions. Makes me want to dig out some old videotape just to turn back the clock to see the younger versions of our now- college sons and teenagers.
I found some old videos and re-watched them after digging up the Goodnight Moon one. There’s one of my son trying to catch a cricket that is so adorable. Those little mundane moments are the most precious ones now.
That’s so clever. It’s amazing that technology has grown to warrant the creativity behind books like Goodnight iPad. I wonder how many kids are reading the book on an iPad.
lol, I bet a lot of them.
I tried to read a book on my iPad, but I kept getting distracted by the other things to do. For now, I still prefer paper books.
I was resistant to my Kindle at first, too, but the more I used it, the move I loved it. Now, a year and a half later, I actually prefer to read books that way. It does take some getting used to, though, and I could see an iPad being more distracting than a plain old e-reader.
Now that is a book for this household – though possibly for My Husband instead of my grown children! I have had to declare a technology free zone at the dinner table and in the bedroom.
I need the reminder just as much as my kids do.
Your boys are so handsome. I love seeing pics of them!