She stood in the door of my bedroom. "I was just reading another chapter in my book and I want to read you something. It's very sad." I tried to resist the urge to roll my eyes at her attempt to avoid bedtime. It had been a busy night. Open house at school kept us out until past 9:00 and the time since getting home had been rushed to fit in baths and getting things ready for tomorrow's school day. "You need to be in bed. You'll never manage to get ready on time if you don't get to sleep, like, a long time ago." I tried to explain. Bedtime is always so difficult, except with my oldest, and I think she's just figured out she can go to bed at 9 and pretend that she's asleep.
Emily's big blue eyes peeked out from behind the cover of the book. She took one deep breath, as if to sound exasporated with me, and started to read slowly. I dropped my pen beside the journal in my lap and rested my head against the stack of pillows I was leaning against. I lamented the fact that I lose battles like this so easily (and so often) as I listened to her tell of Stinky and his mother crossing the road. "Stinky stood as if paralyzed." she read, "The sound of the car that approached him and the sight of it held his gaze and he stood not knowing what to do. His eyes were big as saucers and his heart raced as the car bore down on him, yet still, he could not move." I couldn't see Em's face behind the book she held in front of her, but I heard her voice change. She stood as if she was made of stone. She spoke as if she might be suffocating, her voice rasping and low. I knew what was coming, of course, but I watched, transfixed, as if she were a television.
"Stinky's mother pushed him out of the way just in time. But it was too late for her. She was dead" She read Stinky's next line ("MOOOOOMMM!") as if she were Stinky in the book and not an 8 year-old reading from a book. The book fell from where she held it so high in front of herself, and I saw her sweet little face twisted with the pain of heartbreak. She dropped the book onto the couch as she ran across the room to me. "Oh mommy isn't that the saddest thing ever!" she cried as she dropped her head onto my shoulders. I cried too - not for Stinky and his mother, but for my baby with the tender heart.
I'm the same way, you know. I know that she will always remember this passage from this book and how it affected her, just as I remember how much it hurt me when Nester crawled from beneath the warmth of his mother and found that she had died protecting him from the freezing snow. When she asked if she could sleep in our room on the couch, I couldn't say no. Her covers shook with each deep snub and sniffle as she tried to go to sleep and I had to cry again.
Emily's big blue eyes peeked out from behind the cover of the book. She took one deep breath, as if to sound exasporated with me, and started to read slowly. I dropped my pen beside the journal in my lap and rested my head against the stack of pillows I was leaning against. I lamented the fact that I lose battles like this so easily (and so often) as I listened to her tell of Stinky and his mother crossing the road. "Stinky stood as if paralyzed." she read, "The sound of the car that approached him and the sight of it held his gaze and he stood not knowing what to do. His eyes were big as saucers and his heart raced as the car bore down on him, yet still, he could not move." I couldn't see Em's face behind the book she held in front of her, but I heard her voice change. She stood as if she was made of stone. She spoke as if she might be suffocating, her voice rasping and low. I knew what was coming, of course, but I watched, transfixed, as if she were a television.
"Stinky's mother pushed him out of the way just in time. But it was too late for her. She was dead" She read Stinky's next line ("MOOOOOMMM!") as if she were Stinky in the book and not an 8 year-old reading from a book. The book fell from where she held it so high in front of herself, and I saw her sweet little face twisted with the pain of heartbreak. She dropped the book onto the couch as she ran across the room to me. "Oh mommy isn't that the saddest thing ever!" she cried as she dropped her head onto my shoulders. I cried too - not for Stinky and his mother, but for my baby with the tender heart.
I'm the same way, you know. I know that she will always remember this passage from this book and how it affected her, just as I remember how much it hurt me when Nester crawled from beneath the warmth of his mother and found that she had died protecting him from the freezing snow. When she asked if she could sleep in our room on the couch, I couldn't say no. Her covers shook with each deep snub and sniffle as she tried to go to sleep and I had to cry again.
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