The “Good Night Routine”
It started with my old college French lessons coming out one night while putting our son to bed.
"Hey Bud." I said to our then 5-year-old "Do you know how to say good night in French?"
"How?" he answered, sitting up slightly in bed.
"Bonne Nuit." I answered.
"BONE NEW-EE" he repeated slowly, feeling the foreign sounds on his lips.
"Yep." I said smiling. "We should add it to our bedtime, don't you think?"
"Yeah! He said excitedly, "And we can add other ways of saying good night and learn them!"
"Sure, Bud." I smiled back, "we can do that." And we did.
Three and a half years later and every night after prayers we run through our list of "good nights". French, Russian, Portuguese, Thai, Dari, Spanish, Kru, and Hebrew. Over the years we reached out to family and friends we know who speak other languages. One afternoon we called my sister-in-law who is from Brazil and listened as she taught us the word Boa Noite. "BOAH-NO-EET-TA" my son and I repeated back to her. A few weeks later, when he started Spanish lessons, we added "Buenas Noches" to our list.
Weeks folded into months, and months turned into years as we added more words to our growing list. Once we chatted to my son's newest Uncle, and he taught us how to say Good Night in Hebrew. We practiced moving our tongues over the first "LEILA" and then savored the way the "TOB" ended in a soft "V" sound. When Daddy started learning a new language for work, we added "ราตรีสวัสดิ์" and learned how to say Good Night in Thai. One call to my son's first Nanny, someone who even after all these years, is part of our family and we learned how to say "спокойной ночи". My son laughed and told her it sounded like we were saying "Spoiled Nachos" instead of Spokoynoy Nochi or Good Night in Russian. When my younger sister and her husband came to visit last Spring, my brother-in-law taught us how to say Good Night in Dari. "شب بخیر" sounded soft at the beginning with the "Sh-OW" and then throaty as we finished the phrase "huSHK". My son laughed as he listened to his uncle explain how to use the back of your mouth to get the guttural sound. The list continued to grow with new phrases taught to us by those we loved.
Every night we repeat this list of "Good Nights". Little sounds that when strung together send my son off to sleep each night. These sounds represent so many diverse backgrounds from our family and friends, and while they all sound different from each other, they all mean the same thing: "Good Night". Vastly different, yet all the same.
Good Night,
-HR