Used by permission of Ricardo Cortés/Akashic Books
-
Parenting
Books
-
Parenting
baby sleep
-
Entertainment
Books
There are basically two types of parents in the world: The patient, back-rubbing, sure-I’ll-read-you-one-more-story types, and the rest of us.
By the time I get my kids in bed at night, I’m pretty much done. (They know this, too, because frequently I mutter some version or other of "Mommy’s done" as I tuck them in. Well honestly.) On any given day I’ve been up since 5:00 am, have made three meals for four people, worked, glued countless broken tiaras/headbands/macaroni picture frames, played seven rounds of Candy Land, completed at least one grocery store run, refereed spats, brushed a few dozen teeth and kept two small and rather unpredictable people alive the entire time. It’s exhausting. I love my kids, but I also live for that one hour of the day when they are asleep and I am not. Sometimes it takes every ounce of restraint I’ve got not to shout: Go. The. F*ck. To. Sleep.
Clearly I’m not alone, because award-winning novelist Adam Mansback has a book coming out this fall brilliantly titled Go the F*ck to Sleep. (I know! Why didn’t I think of writing it down?) The publisher describes it as "a bedtime book for parents who live in the real world, where a few snoozing kitties and cutesy rhymes don't always send a toddler sailing off to dreamland." A sample verse:
The cats nestle close to their kittens now.
The lambs have laid down with the sheep.
You're cozy and warm in your bed, my dear
Please go the f*ck to sleep.
Obvious grammar mistake aside (it’s lain, for the love of lambs!), I admit I find this funny. I wouldn’t read it to my kids, of course, just as I wouldn’t shout the title up the stairs at them. I might not even give this book as a gift, lest the restless little f*ckers in question stumble upon it one day. Still, it makes me feel better knowing someone out there can relate.
