Bedtime rituals can be just about the best time of the day here in Wonderland for all sorts of reasons. In our house bedtime signifies the end of my work day. It doesn’t mean that I won’t still load the dishwasher, or fold a few more piles in the mountains of laundry, but it does mean that I no longer have to listen to the incessant screaming of a seven, five, four, two and one year old simultaneously- or pick up any more cheerios from the kitchen floor, or unstick any more lollipops from anyone’s hair for a few blissful hours.
Fred puts the kids to bed each night, and has always done so with night time prayers, and a story. The 5 little ones gather first in the boy’s room for prayers, and then once they are nestled and snuggled in, a quick drink of milk, and a chapter or two from a book. Next, its kisses and hugs before the girls move in to the nursery for bunny hutches and a mini impromptu story about an imaginary pony named Sunshine and his adventures with three good little princesses.
At the end of each "pony story", as we have begun to call them, Fred finishes by telling Mary and her little sisters that the three little princesses were so tired from their adventures that they all fell fast asleep and they slept like a rock!
Mary found this idea of sleeping like a rock highly suspect and denied anyone could possibly sleep like a rock, let alone three princesses. It mattered not that her father insisted it was so. Old adage or no, she wasn’t buying it. The more Fred insisted that a princess could sleep like a rock, the more she objected to this ending for the pony story. In fact she refused one night to sleep at all until this ending was changed.
Now anyone knows that bedtime rituals are important for keeping the peace in a busy house. Goodness gracious if we can’t get a little peace and quiet by 8 o’clock, production will suffer the entire next day! But Fred found he was in unchartered water. He couldn’t simply use his ‘strong voice’ like he did with all seven of those previous boys. When he had done that in the past we had an overflow of tears that took a good twenty minutes and Mommy back to work before we could resolve it. Fred had to find a way to help the princesses go to sleep but how?
At the end of the story the next night Fred finished once again by saying “And then the three little princesses were so tired from their adventures that they all fell fast asleep and slept like a rock.”
To which Mary answered, “ No they didn’t Dad.”
Fred sighed, gave in and said “OK Mary, what did they sleep like?”
To which she replied:
“they fell asleep like a Mosquito…(and then as a true little girl- I mean princess- she compromised and added) …and a rock.”
And so for the next few nights the princesses would also fall asleep like a rock and a mosquito (which is certainly no worse than sleeping like a plain old rock)
But as luck would have it, by the next week, Princess Mary was not so sure that princesses did in fact sleep like mosquitoes either, and so she asked her weary father if perhaps the princess could fall asleep differently again?
“OK Mary how did the princesses fall asleep this time?”
She replied they fell asleep like a rock and a pony and a mosquito.
(Truth be told, I have never seen a pony sleep, but Mary is certain that ponies have the best sleep of all, and of course, she might be right.)
And so they did. The princesses fell asleep like a rock, and a pony, and a mosquito-at least for a few nights.
But how could Princess Mary be sure? Maybe, she reasoned the following week, the princesses didn’t really fall asleep just perfectly like a rock -or a pony -or a mosquito?
And so Princess Mary asked if perhaps the princesses all fell asleep more like something else instead?
Her dad said it was possible, but what could that be?
Mary answered after much deliberation;
“ I think they fell asleep like a toad too.”
(Because we all know toads sleep so well - right?) and so the princesses all slept like a rock, and a pony, and a mosquito, and a toad.
And this has now satisfied our four year old daughter. Pajamas can be donned, and prayers can be said, and teeth can be brushed because three little princesses are tired enough, after all the adventures of the of their day to fall asleep like a rock-toad-pony-mosquito.
Long after the Lego’s have been put away and the smudges have been wiped off of the refrigerator front. When the dolls are tucked beneath still arms, and the shoes have found their matches and are lined up once again like soldiers by the back door. My husband and I will sneak stealthily into the children’s room and peek in on quiet faces who are all sleeping like a,
like a,
well- like a…
rock-toad-pony-mosquito.
