And so to bed

Bedtime is sacred in our house. I suspect it is in most homes where tired parents have been caring for small children all day. It's the hour when the day shifts gears from child-centered activity to adult-designed relaxation.

Today I felt like I was especially hasty with the rush to kiddy slumberville. Maybe it's the strain of single parenting while N's away on another trip, or maybe I just look forward to that time each night when I get to reengage with my grown-up self. At any rate, it's never a tough fight with our children--they love their beds--so they were eager to follow my lead in the bedtime round-up after dinner.

At precisely 7:30 I put the plan into motion. The three of us swirled through the house like tiny tornadoes, shuttling dishes away from the dinner table, shoving cushions back into the couches and scooping wooden blocks into their wicker-box homes for the night. We sprinted upstairs with armloads of books and clothes to be stowed in the nursery, and then off to brush teeth and hit the potties one last time.

We slithered into L's nest beneath her pink-flower wall lamp at about 7:50 to read books. Just paces from my finish line, it occurred to me that the same thing has been happening to me every night at this time. Just when I think I'm ready to be done with my mothering duties for the day, I find myself having a hard time leaving them in their room for the night. No matter what has happened during the day, these two busy children become peaceful and almost perfect to me as they settle in for nighttime rest. Under rose-hued light, in snug-fitting jammies and with fragrant, freshly washed hair they become treasures to me.

My pace slows as I thumb through the pages of Dr. Seuss and Babar and I sip these last moments of the day and let them roll around on my tongue for a bit so I can really savor them--L's edible cheeks, the chubbiness of which I know will soon melt away as she grows; C's insistent chattering about what is going on in each picture of the book and the way he says "nike, ti-ter" as he rolls on top of L for a good-night bear hug.

After prayers, a lullaby and one last cradling of C, I leave them in their beds in that soft pink light and head back down to my night. As usual, it's 15 minutes later than I had planned. The ice in my nightcap is already melting, my favorite TV show is a quarter of the way over and my final two hours of peace are slipping away. But I know in the depths of my soul I haven't missed a thing.