tell me a story

last night manuel was painting with his brother at our new house (i can't call it our home until we are living there) and i was trying to put two children to bed at once (usually story goes to sleep around 8 while manuel tells sea a story and then i put her to sleep shortly thereafter). but this particular night they both decided they were ready for bed simultaneously...so despite the nursing challenges and odd angles required to make this happen, it was overall very sweet as they held hands and smiled at one another snuggling up with their mommy...at one point sea stopped and said "will you tell me a story?" which touched me on many levels i don't want to over-analyze here...so i guess there were a couple things i wanted to touch on...how my dad liked to tell stories, life as a story, story's life continuing on after the loss of my dad...these topics could go a lot further but in order to actually post this i'm going to just share some of the characters in the story manuel likes to tell sea...they are a mix of names he came up with/borrowed and some of the richard scarry characters including huckle cat, hop-a-long rabbit, lowly worm, "stow-bester" (the way sea pronounces sylvester), bow-wow puppy...and he makes up stories about daily life with them (usually they go to the beach) and sea always includes details from her own life to add to the story...sometimes she speaks in present tense about how she was there in the story with them...

speaking of sleep...i think sea is ready to go to bed so more later...