Do not go gentle into that good night

When either DH or I are putting The Girl to bed at night I am often reminded of a poem I first read in 10th grade. It is entitled “Do not go gentle into that good night,” by Dylan Thomas. The poem itself is about death, but the last lines seem to apply to my dear girl as she fights her evening slumber: “Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.” This is most definitely what she is doing. She knows she is tired, but yet has to fight it off with every ounce of her being before relenting and drifting off to sleep. If only she knew how much fun we will have waking her up at 9 am on a Saturday morning when she is a teenager, just because we can! Okay, maybe we won’t be so cruel, but these long evenings of sitting beside her crib and waiting until she is done playing with her wonderful Fisher Price aquarium are getting to be a drag. Sometimes it takes her less than 20 minutes to fall asleep, but on a bad night it can take 1.5 hours. I realize we are weak parents, and our little girl has us wrapped around her little finger, but I am simply not strong enough to let her cry it out. She wails so miserably and loudly, and sounds so pathetic that inevitably one of us will break down and “rescue” her.

For now we sit and listen and wait for our little girl to rage against the dying of the light, just long enough for her to feel good about going gently into that good night.