Bedtime Readings

Lately. \our "bedtime story" tends to be a chapter of real literature.  We tried "Arabian Nights," but it is positively creepy - like real, preternatural creepiness, not just exotic fantasy, so Scheherazade was dispatched, so to speak, only a few nights into the "marriage"...  We read a book entitled, "Lost on a Mountain in Maine" - a real-life account of a boy who got lost on a hike with the boyscouts down a mountain in very, very rural Maine and had to fend for himself for roughly nine days, back in the late 1930's - good stuff, especially for our own hardy New England boys.  A fair bit of Narnia... A few other books... But the current project is "Gulliver's Travels," and that's a particular challenge, since it's written in 18th century English, with a very lofty literary lilt, so I find myself "translating" it as I read it, which is like changing your shoes and making sandwiches at the same time.

But Gulliver is a big hit, especially for Ian.  I must say, it gets pretty earthy, in a way that a 7- or 9-year old boy would have to appreciate.  But I get so tired reading it, that I'm quite ready to nod off, at times, pages before the chapter is over.  This happened last night; Ian had already closed his eyes, and I was exhausted - especially with the added task of translating-on-sight, which really slows things down, so I put the book on my chest and took a quick nap.  Ian figured it out, and asked why we had stopped.  I told him that we had both gone to sleep, at which point he proceeded to explain that he really wasn't sleeping at all  -just closing his eyes.  Tonight, he closed his eyes again, and this time, I finished reading with a tone of grand finale on the last sentence of the paragraph I was reading.  I thought he might continue sleeping, but no - he stirred, with his eyes still closed, and gave his formal blessing to dispense with the reading, for the night:

"Okay, Dad.  'Got it."

(November, 2012)