I don’t know what it is about Little Red Riding Hood, but when I get halfway through the story, I can hardly keep my eyes open. Doesn’t matter if I’m tired or not when I start to read this book, because when I get to the part where Little Red strays off the path, and goes into the meadow to pick wildflowers for her Grandmother, and I see the sun beaming through the trees, and she just picks and picks those flowers, and just doesn’t know when to stop — it’s all I can take.
The bad part is, this is a critical part in the story. Poor old Grandma, at this very minute, is actually being eaten by the wolf… WHOLE. Thankfully, we learn later when the huntsman splits the wolf’s stomach open, there is not a scratch on her. Even though the wolf did have those “what big teeth you have” teeth.
Why? Why of all times, do I want to sleep at this point in the story? Poor Grandma. Little Red Riding Hood is not like War and Peace, so why sleep?
One day, it was just me and the little guy, and we were all cozy on the sofa with a stack of books, and we were plowing through them quite well — until — until we got to Little Red. I started nodding off in mid-sentence. Painful, it was, just to keep my eyes open, but I soon found, I had no control over my eyelids. Finally I said, “Sweetie, Mommy is just so tired. Can we just take a quick little nap right here, and then I’ll finish the book when we wake up?”
“OK,” he said. I figured, he wouldn’t sleep, but would soon climb off the couch and quietly amuse himself with the train that was winding its way around the coffee table and sofa on the floor.
He surprised me. He stayed right with me, on the sofa, patting my head every once in awhile, and he just waited. Never said a word. Who knows how long I slept. Ten, maybe 15 minutes? I woke to find him still beside me, patiently waiting. Resisting the urge to drop my head and sleep some more, I picked up right where we left off, and finished the story, describing his favorite part — when the huntsman carries the skinned wolf skin away on his back, while Grandma and Little Red Riding Hood drink blackberry tea, and eat bread and honey, on the table with the vase of flowers Little Red Riding Hood picked in the meadow.
What a patient fella; my daughter would’ve been like “Get up, Mommy, NOW!”
That’s too funny. My kids are also not that patient. Of course I’d never be able to nod off to begin with…”Mom, what are you doing? Mom, what happened next? Mom? Read!”
What a little sweetie!
Lately I’ve noticed I get very sleepy and yawn a lot when reading to my kids. I don’t know if it’s how I’m breathing, or what, because for me it doesn’t depend on what I’m reading. Maybe it’s a sign I need more sleep at night!
that happens to me…every time i read my son a book!! it doesn’t matter what book…i start reading without hearing myself talk…then, i start feeling exhausted. it’s awful. i just figure i’m getting old!! waaahh!!
xoxo
And when he starts kindergarten, he won’t know the ending to any fairy tales, and the teacher will say, “Didn’t your Mom ever read to your when you were little?” Well, no… she just .. took lots of naps.
Aw, what a sweet post – and what a sweet little guy you have. I can see mine doing that (in a few years – he’s still too squirmy-toddler right now); he’s got my husband’s patience and laidback personality.
Haha. There is something, my dear, that has primed you to drowsiness.
MotherPie, You’re taking me back to my college Greek Mythology class… symbolism and subliminal messages and metaphors… and “what does this passage about straying off the path, and not knowing when to stop, and never having enough wildflowers really say about you, Miss Susie?”
But, it’s the SUN, I tell you… it’s the heat of the sun coming through the trees in dappled light that does it.
That is one patient boy! I am impressed.
Curious George makes me so-very-tired. That monkey is a little too verbose for my taste.
That is SO sweet…
Oh, Susie, you made me laugh with this one. Falling asleep while reading a book to Sprout and Pip makes me feel positively ancient. The worst is when I start babbling incoherently about something totally unrelated to the book at hand and they ask, what?, what you say, Mommy?, what are you talking about!?