baby
Comfort in Books By Lara Krupicka
I breathe in the smell of Johnson’s baby shampoo as my daughter presses back against me in the rocker. Chubby fingers hold tight to her favorite blankie, thumb tucked tight between her lips. “Mommy read,” she lisps around the thumb. She resumes sucking. I lean us both sideways toward the basket on the floor next to the rocker and pull out a board book. “Goodnight Moon.” With one arm propped against the rocker, toddler snuggled in tight; I flip open the book’s stiff cover and begin to read.
vehicle in “Sheep in a Jeep” jiggle us with giggles. “Sheep cheer. Driver sheep forgets to steer.” These rhymes and tales of my daughters’ childhoods serve as anchors in our day. With each of my three girls I repeat the ritual of story before bedtime. I savor the sweet smells, the gentle rocking motion, the piping in of a high-pitched voice to repeat remembered words as they “read” along with me. “Good night cow jumping over the moon!” We pause in the same spots. Laugh at the expected points in the narrative. Sigh with contentment over Big Nutbrown Hare in “Guess How Much I Love You” who, like me, loves his Little Nutbrown Hare to the moon and back. Then as toddlers become preschoolers, who become grade-schoolers, “Green Eggs and Ham” replaces “Guess How Much I Love You” before yielding to American Girl books. Cozy read-alouds are traded for assigned alone reading time. The ritual shifts. Now as bedtime approaches we each absorb different books, my girls stretched on a couch or
“In the great green room there was a telephone and a red balloon.” The sucking slows as my daughter takes in the familiar words in the quiet of this dimly lit bedroom. Swaying chair, warm child, soothing words. All is right. The tantrums and spilled Cheerios from the day fade away. It is just us and the story. “Goodnight Moon” with its green room and the picture of a cow jumping over the moon fills that space. Mama and Baby Bunny’s goodnight wishes to the occupants of the room become our own wishes, child and I. By the time the story finishes, we are ready for our own good nights. Some evenings “Hand, Hand, Fingers, Thumb” inspires a rhythm and I match the cadence of rocker to words: “one thumb, one thumb, drumming on a drum.” Back and forth, back and forth. First quickly and then slowing to a sleepy halt with the final “dum, ditty, dum, ditty, dum... dum... dum.” On other occasions the hapless lambs and their 24
Our Kids Magazine | October 2014
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