A Mother's Love Too Great

     The layout of the book is interesting in how it continues to link the mother's love to the older and older the boy gets.  Every other image for the major part of the book is the mother rocking the boy in her arms. The images that coincide in-between the pages of the mother rocking the baby are all of the boy acting in his own manner.  The boy acts like a regular kid and does things that make it harder on the mom like making a mess or throwing away a watch.  The continuation of the same actions of the mother show that she loves and will always love her son.  It even seems that the harder he makes it to love him with his messes the more and more she does love him.  The appeal in the first of these order of pictures makes the point that the mother loves her baby in his youngest age.  She rocks him back and forth and by the look on her face she stares at him and just basks in the great joy she has of having the boy.  The cat also confirms this, because it is looking for attention from the mother.  The cat probably at one point got all the attention and now it has been refocused.  The boy looks so warm and safe in his mother's arms it shows that she cares deeply for him and he can fall asleep, because he knows he is safe.

     In the next image of the mother and the boy we see here sneaking into his room late at night to rock him back and forth.  Normally when you see a person and just their two eyes are showing above something it usually means they are doing something mischievous.  This visual is used on common signs for crime watch signs and sleuth signs.  That is a key to making this image so strong in showing she loves him.  The artist drew a scene where the normal reader without knowing what the book was about might look at it differently.  By creating a visual that is almost conflicting with a regular image it makes the mother cute by showing a sweet side of her and one that is humorous, since she doesn't actually need to sneak in on all fours to make sure he doesn't wake up.  The cat again is included in the picture and shows a re-occurring visual that follows the boy around.  The cat as explained in other sections is a symbol for the mother and how she will always be with the boy.  Since when the mother is there the cat is always in the room.

     Viewing the last image of the mother holding the boy we have a very strong image of love.  It begs the question how far will you go to show your love.  The mother is now very old, her glasses and white hair suggest that she is probably too old to be holding the boy.  By showing how old she is it expresses her strong love for her son and wants to let him know it still.  This image is very humorous not just because the mother would not be physically able to hold and rock the boy, but she also climbed up a ladder to his window and after picking him up he is still fast asleep.  In real life these events all would never happen, but it makes us laugh and enjoy the book more when it appeals to another emotion than just love which is humor.  Again we see a cat in this picture and although it is not the same cat it still represents the mother.  It shows that her love has continued for him in this new house of his through a new cat to follow him.

     All these images and reoccurring images show the mother's love for the boy.  The idea they try and show is that no matter where the boy is and how much of an adult he becomes he will always feel the love of his mother, like the first time he was held and rocked.