You're close, but it's not a few nights in a row, it's a few months in a row - the standstill is that it returns to the same angle above the horizon on each orb

You're close, but it's not a few nights in a row, it's a few months in a row - the standstill is that it returns to the same angle above the horizon on each orbital pass (month), and thus to the same spot in the sky. (Night to night, the moon isn't in the same spot, because it's revolving along its ellipse to a different true anomaly position.)