Books, Bedtime and Bad Things

After dinner yesterday I was playing with the girls when the first reports of the terror attack in Nice, France started showing up on my phone. News alerts, Facebook; I wanted to know what was going on. S wanted to wear one of my bracelets to bed and D was trying to decide if she was going to wear a tutu to bed.

I finally decided that I need to focus on my twins and the precious little time I get with them every day. The horrors of the world will still be unrolling on Facebook and every major news network when they’re sound asleep. As I put my phone down D walked up to me and handed me a book.

“Night-night book,” she said sitting down next to me.

I stared down and felt a lump in my throat. The book was “Brush Mona Lisa’s Hair.”

France is under attack again and here I am staring at one of the most famous paintings in the world, which resides in the French’s most famous museum…and my little girl has no idea. She just likes interacting with the pictures.

We are reading about Frans Hals’ The Laughing Cavalier, playing with his collar, and over an ocean she doesn’t know about other children are dying because of the evil that exists in this world. How do I save them from it?

Even in bed they're in constant motion. 

How can I keep them innocent? Thinking that all it takes to be a princess is to wear a tutu or a dress, that they are always beautiful, that their momma is a princess, Daddy is the funniest man in the world, the dog is as much a part of the family as anyone else, and every color is pink.

How do I ever look into their eyes and tell them about the world that exists now when their chief concern is if I’m ok when I cough or if their sister is ok when she is crying. These are girls who climb into each other’s crib during nap time so they can be close to one another. 

As one blows on the feathers of the angels in Raphael’s Sistine Madonna the other one picks out another book. Night-night books are plentiful now and there’s always one more they try to slide in to delay bedtime just a few more minutes. And you know what, I’ll let them. Tonight we can have just one more book, and then maybe another one after that, because someday I will have to talk to my girls about the bad things in the world. Bad people, bad events, bad days, things that make us sad, things we can change and things we can’t. But right now, tonight and tomorrow, there’s time for one more book. The bad things will still be there when it’s over, so let's do something to keep them at bay for just a few more minutes. 

Once all books are finished and put away, and kisess have been doled out, they have been tucked in, each to their individual liking, as I shut the door sweet little voices from their cribs say, “Momma, I love you a moon annnnnd back.”  

I love you too baby girls. All the way to the moon and back...and back....and back again.