The Velveteen Rabbit….

The windows are open, the fresh air smells and feels so good after months and months of air-conditioning, it’s just a bit chilly, but the kind of chilly that feels so good. Sunshine pours through the windows and if you happen to step in a patch of it, it’s warm (the perfect place for your toes). We sit in the rocking chair, a quilt across our laps, and I begin to read “The Velveteen Rabbit”, I’m not sure if it’s the story, the fact that it’s nap time, the atmosphere or the voice I use, but before the boy even leaves the rabbit in the garden, he’s asleep. It happens every time. I could read fifty books before, or none. It doesn’t matter, it’s “The Velveteen Rabbit” that knocks him out, but, only for nap time – it doesn’t work at bed time at all?! Weird huh? I always finish the story, even though he’s fast asleep and it’s one of our longer books, I never skip a page, a sentence, a word. We read about when the boy forgets the rabbit, and the rabbit becomes real, all the way to the boy coming home and finding his old friend in the woods. He sleeps through the last several pages, I settle him into the crib and he always reaches up for his bear, his version of the “velveteen rabbit”, cuddles in and stays asleep. I love these moments, I love being a mom.