Bedtime Stories

So every night when it is bedtime, Ayden Jane picks out 2 books. One for me (or Gary) and one for her. I am instructed to read mine first, which means read it to her. Then it is her turn to read to me. I am not sure when this tradition started, but it is very cute. She has a couple of books like Brown Bear, Brown Bear where it works pretty well. Many of the books though, her rendition is fascinating. It is a mix of spot on and no where close.

Tonight, however, well, I'd say, it umm... left me speechless.

The book she 'read' was Shaoey and Dot. It is a story by the Steven Curtis Chapman family in honor of the adoptions of their little girls from China. The story goes that a lady bug finds a noisy bundle and then stays with the little baby at the orphanage until her family adopts her. Okay, so that was the ridiculously short version. As the lady bug watches over Shaoey and sorts out where they are, how they are cared for... this line comes in: "She started to fly, then the little thing cried as if saying, "Please don't go away!" Ayden Jane's version is "please not leave me". Dot (the lady bug) stays with her, of course.

They stay together through baths and feeding and napping and crying... Then the day comes for Shaoey to get a family. The book is a read aloud book and is a long, sweet poem so it is not straight forward. Here is an example right before she 'gets her family':

"But, then, there's a cry that's the saddest of all,

Infact,it's unlike any other,

It comes from a deep, empty place in your heart

That can only be filled by a mother.

"And after today, I will never again

Hear that sad song coming from you,

You're getting adopted, you're getting a mother,

And you're getting a family too!

I have always thought it was cute but was not sure how much Ayden Jane really understood about it.

Then she 'read' it to me. She came to the end and said, "I missed a page. She needs her family." I went backwards page by page for a few pages and she got excited, "there it is. She have a new family. She has a family forever." Next, AJ dropped the book and grabbed my face (to make me look her in the eyes up close) and said, "will you always be with me? please?"

Yes, I squeezed her tight... and assured her that I love her and will always be with her and we will all always be her family. She just astounds me at times. She does a good job of expressing herself and uses a wide variety of vocabulary, but every once in a while there is a glimpse of just how deeply she understands things.