We climb into bed at 7:45pm for the sole purpose of extra cuddles. After two chapters in the thawing forest of Narnia, I close the book and tuck myself around him. He scoots over and pulls my arm around his middle. We slip into our rhythm. Light and steady, whisper and pulse, we course along the curl of our twin spines like water smoothing a riverbank. He sighs and goes still. It is barely 8:30 and my boy breathes softly in my arms.
—
Image: Elizabeth Shippen Green, Five Little Pigs, illustration for “Mistress of the House” (1905)
Shannon E. Williams 
How well you capture that precious moment and all the impressions and impacts it has in the present and will hold in the future. Impressive, honest and welcome.
Thanks for sharing.
Thank you! The sweet moments are fleeting, and all the more precious for it.
… and of course you are absolutely correct – but you are planting the seeds of memories that can, should and will be shared in the sparkling years to follow.
Amen to that.
(oh – and if I may ask – do you use different voices/accents when you read to/with children?)
In the name of the daybreak
and the eyelids of morning
and the wayfaring moon
and the night when it departs,
I swear I will not dishonor
my soul with hatred,
but offer myself humbly
as a guardian of nature,
as a healer of misery,
as a messenger of wonder,
as an architect of peace.
In the name of the sun and its mirrors
and the day that embraces it
and the cloud veils drawn over it
and the uttermost night
and the male and the female
and the plants bursting with seed
and the crowning seasons
of the firefly and the apple,
I will honor all life
—wherever and in whatever form
it may dwell—on Earth my home,
and in the mansions of the stars.
“School Prayer” by Diane Ackerman