Bedtime Delights

Week Twenty-eight: Sunday 8 – Saturday 14 April

“I love you,” she whispered.

“Thank you. I love you, too,” I whispered back.

With that, she stretched out her arm, wrapped her hand round my neck and gently pulled my head towards hers, puckering her lips for a gentle kiss as she guided me.

She then nuzzled my head into her neck and shoulder. “You lie there and I’ll stroke your hair,” she added, patting my back reassuringly a couple of times.

And therein lies the latest delightful ritual that has unfolded in the never- ending discovery of joy and wonder that is the relationship I have with my three year-old daughter.

This wonderful display of my daughter’s caring and nurturing side came after she had already read me a story; well told me a story, as she doesn’t actually read. She does though, like so many children, have her favourite books and she has had them read to her while she follows the pictures countless times.

Equipped with enough awareness of her familiarity of one of her books, ‘Gotcha’, she boldly offered to read it to me when I came to lie down beside her and read to her before she went to sleep.

With a combination of rote, the occasional personal embellishment and mumbo-jumbo made up words to fill in the blanks, she did a fine job of taking me through the story of the little girl who was starting at a new school and struggling to make new friends.

Page by page, her narrative flowed beautifully; she even, occasionally, aping the staff from nursery, I think, propped the book up and widened the viewing angle, asking as she did, “Can you see alright from there?”

How precious children are; from conception to the first crucial five years of their - life and beyond. How magical. What a gift. What gems. And so do we not have an obligation to polish them and make them shine, always?

Nature v nurture? A healthy mix of both, I’m sure. But, while we can’t do much to determine the nature that a newborn child brings into the world with them, we can do everything in our power to determine the nature of the nurturing they receive.

A product of our environment? I think so, more so than anything else. I’m advocating a nurturing, caring, loving, patient, creative, positive environment for all children, all the time.