Scene 20: The Bedtime Story

Find all of my 31 Moments of Motherhood posts here.

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[Lights come up on a woman sitting in a glider, with a side table stacked high with children’s books. She is holding the book, Goodnight Moon.]

Me

“I love bedtime stories. When my kids were babies, we would snuggle up in our glider and I would read some…

okay…a lot of my favorites like,

‘…Goodnight room…Goodnight moon…Goodnight cow jumping over the moon…Goodnight light…and the red balloon…’

We would read and rock…and rock and read, and then read some more.”

[Stands up and sits down on the floor, cross-legged.]

Me

“As the kids grew, and the length of the books grew too, the conversation around bedtime stories changed too….

‘…only two books, kiddos…and not the dinosaur book with all the crazy names, and not the seek and find 1000 things on the farm…it is too late for those ones.’

We would read…and they would squirm…and I would grimace when they would pick the longest books possible, but we would snuggle and answer questions and talk…”

[Stands up, grabs a book, and walks toward the stage.]

Me

“And then my oldest started reading on her own, and there were some nights when I would say,

‘Does anyone want to read with me?’

And all I would hear was pages swishing as they looked at and read their own books.”

[Sits back down in the glider.]

Me

“Bittersweet, this trip called motherhood….Tough, this madness called growing up.”

“But thankfully, those moments where I feel like I’m back at the ‘beginning’ still come. When all three kids gather around me while I read a book from those baby years, happy recognition reflected in their smiles. When I open the book with the well-worn pages, and start to read once more,

‘…Goodnight room…Goodnight moon…Goodnight cow jumping over the moon…Goodnight light…and the red balloon.'”

[Lights down.]