This post will make you yawn

from "Goodnight, Gorilla" by Peggy Rathmann

&

from "Big Red Barn" by Margaret Wise Brown, illustrated by Felicia Bond

Perhaps more than the spit-up that accessorizes my right sweat-panted knee and adorns my left hoodied-shoulder, more than my use of the word "potty" over and against "restroom," these two images reveal that I am without a doubt the mother of three children ages 4 and under. 

Why? Not because they are pictures from board books of the beloved and relatively indestructible kind. Not because I have them memorized. But because they render me absolutely incapable of NOT yawning when I get to these pages. I am not kidding. I try to swallow them, I really do. But I have already yawned five times while writing this post. Five!  (Oh....here we go again. So, 6.) While the Goodnight Gorilla (7) illustration dictates the yawn by the gorilla's body language, the Big Red Barn illustration literally draws it out of me. (8)
With familiarity I read aloud,

"And there they were

all    night   long

Fast asleep

in the 

big

red

  barn."

With such longing I gaze at that page. All night long. All. Night. Long. Really? ALL night long?
And then it comes. The yawn. Unbidden.,(9) every time. Every time. The mere suggestion of bedtime in other children's literature leaves me sucking in air whether I thought I was tired or not. Time of day doesn't seem to make any difference. I am a watery-eyed yawner.

When the day comes that I can read these books yawnless I think that I will have hit a milestone. (10)  A milestone of what I'm not exactly sure, but a notable day nonetheless. This is not a lament. I realize that I am in a season of life that will seem all too fleeting....someday?...This is simply (11) an observation that even in literature (12) yawning is contagious.