Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Bedtime

“Are you ready for a story?” I enquire, walking into the kids’ bedroom to see figures balancing precariously on their beds still in their day clothes, flying a small toy figure around in the pull cord of the electric ceiling fan.

“Yes!” they chorus.

I point out the lack of pyjamas.

"You can read to us while we get into pjs," they say, continuing to play.

I decline to start down that slippery slope of insubordination and shake my head in a stern motherly manner.

“I command you,” declaims Youngest, dramatically throwing out an arm in a grand gesture.

“I’m the queen around here,” I reply and exit strategically before we get into an argument that will go nowhere.

From my computer next door I hear fierce whispers, as they exhort each other to get undressed.
“SHE won’t read to us unless we do,” Youngest hisses across the room at her older siblings.

In a matter of minutes I am recalled.

“We’re ready!” and I return to see Youngest just pulling her pyjama top over her head and slipping into bed.

Long may the pull of a good story work as a failsafe bedtime carrot.

5 comments:

  1. But what was the story? And how did it start?

    Just read us the first few lines. Just for five more minutes.


    Pleeeeeeeeeeez?

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  2. LOL! YOu are definitely the Queen.

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  3. Not only the queen...but a great mama!

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  4. i love that... i find it hard to stop reading when they demand yet another story ;-)

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  5. Me too, Johanna. I get engrossed in the story too and then find I've read way past 8 o'clock, which is supposed to be the time to switch off lights and settle down.

    I can't remember which book I was reading then, Marcheline, I widh I'd written it down back then! But at the moment we're reading The Crown of Violet by Geoffrey Trease and they are just as gripped by it.

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