A new habit or better yet, a tradition is being carved out
in the Rosenberg home. It’s a simple enough interaction between my daughter and
I. You may have heard of it, maybe even practiced it yourself. It’s the bedtime
story. Every night, for the past couple of weeks, my little Jesielle says “Daddy,
will you take me to bed and read me a story”? My reply of course is “sure, go
get settled first”. With that gentle nudge, she screams “Okay”, runs into her
room, gets into her bed, and her checklist begins; Little Kitty Blanket, Dream
Light, with purple stars, an array of stuffed animals including “Yengi” a
little brown creature (I honestly don’t know its species), and a library of her
favorite stories which we rotate through. They include; “Cinderella”, “Ariel”, “Dora
the Explorer”, “Where the Wild Things Are”, and the latest story, “The Mitten”.
As I kneel down to her bedside, she says ”I’LL turn the pages Daddy”. I say “of
course” and I begin reading aloud with as much expression, and attention to punctuation,
so as to teach my littlest to understand the power of incantation. The story’s prompt
her to find a particular detail on the page. For example, if I’m reading Ariel,
it’s the ship that causes her to exclaim “what a big ship with treasure Daddy”!
In the Dora the explorer story, it’s the colors of the rainbow that capture her
attention. In “The Mitten”, she wants to use her finger to trace the mitten
pictured on each page, with a forest animal snuggled inside. I watch her little
face, colored with amazement as I see her eyes aglow with joy, fascination, and
wonderment. A little girl with her father in a small magical setting, sharing
the simplest of experiences, yet opening a whole world of imagination,
fascination and learning.
A new tradition, an
encounter with love…
