bedtime

My toddler won’t sleep unless I lie down with him. It’s a bit of a process, but I don’t mind. Bath time comes just before bed, and it’s most often with Daddy guiding the washing and the splashing and the tooth brushing battle. But as soon as he’s out of the bath, Mama is required. I take my toddler half wrapped in the too-small hooded towel we’ve used since he was a newborn and do my best to dry him as he does his best to evade being dried. I lie him on his bed to get him dressed. If he’s on the sleepier side he will pull me in to him for a hug and smoosh my face to his over and over til I can convince him it’s time to put on his nappy. I stick my face out of the neck hole of his pyjama top and he finds it hilarious for the hundredth time. He chooses a book.

The book is different every night. Where The Wild Things Are is a favourite. Under the Love Umbrella, too. But when he picks Possum Magic a magic trick happens and I become my mum reading to me. It was one of my favourite books, and when I read it aloud, I hear my mum’s voice in mine. I hear it almost every time I read the book, but the phenomenon is always startling. It usually takes a word or two to clock the sound, her sound, but once I hear it, I am filled with the warmth of her expression, her care, her complete focus on reading the story for me. I hear her complete devotion as a mum. I’m reminded of her dedication and love while realising how much I didn’t ever have to think about her dedication and love because it was so present.

Two words out of my mouth can do all this.

Mum wasn’t a performer, and it feels telling that this voice sneaks in more definitively when I’m tired and I’m not colouring my story telling with my singer/actor persona. My mum persona, my “mama” person, is mostly very imperfect on the performance front. Avery has a different listening face when I’m properly performing something, like he’s aware he’s the audience. I’m lucky he seems to enjoy me in this mode, for the moment at least. His dad has a more seamless performance style, it’s his gift: it’s so deeply honest and wielded with such gentle assurance. Avery and I are the beneficiaries of two or three songs every night as Tom perches on the end of the bed with his guitar after the books are read, lights off. The ritual is perfect and fills me with gratitude for every good thing in my life that has led to this. It often makes me weep.

It takes more time than it should. It takes time away from Tom and me that we really would love together. Sometimes I nod off with Avery and wake up shortly after with a start, groggy and annoyed. But despite all this, I love this bedtime island we’ve made. Before and after it I’m scrolling and nail biting and worrying about everything from the state of the world to the state of my crows feet. Avery bedtime suspends the whir and noise, the abundant fears, the cost of living, to let nothing but magic and love in. And sometimes even my mum.

I’m so lucky.