Not grokking root nodes

Greetings:
From Section 5.1 Root Node:

"The root node is the root of the tree. It does not occur anywhere else
in the tree. The element node for the document element is a child of the
root node. The root node also has as children processing instruction and
comment nodes for processing instructions and comments that occur in the
prolog and after the end of the document element.

The value of the root node is the value of the document element."
----
This is confusing. If the value of the root node is the value of the
document element, and the "element node for the document element is a
child of the root node," then these statements imply that the document
element is a child of itself. I'm sure this isn't the case, but that's
how it reads. How should this actually be interpreted? Thanks

-- 
Chuck White
Creative Director
Advance Recruitment Advertising, Inc.
chuck@advancerecruitment.com
http://www.advancerecruitment.com
--------------------------------------------------
author of Internet Explorer 5 Developer's Guide. 
M&T Press, IDG Books Worldwide
co-author
Mastering XML
Sybex Books, September, 1999