Dreamland

The night treasures come.

Owls hoot in the dark night sky.

Beautiful night sky.

~ Nicholas, October 18

Somehow, our family has started to get into a poetry groove.  In fact, my son has requested that all of his writing work be poetry.  So, we've had a sprinkling of poetry around our house - from reading rhyming stories, to books filled with poetry, to writing our own poetry.  Lately, our children have headed off to dreamland with the words of a poem leading them.  I'm attempting to resurrect our evening tradition of reading a poem or short story outside the children's bedrooms once they are tucked into bed.

I still love tucking each of them in - making sure the covers are just where they need to be - and then giving them each a hug and kiss goodnight and wishing them sweet dreams.  Each child is just a little different from the others.  Astrin needs to give everyone a kiss goodnight before I take her upstairs to get into her sleepsack, while I recite The Going to Bed Book and cuddle her.  She needs the door closed too and will shout until it is closed!  Nicholas needs everything in its right spot.  Jaelyn typically just needs the challenge of a race to be scurrying up the stairs and diving head-first into bed. 

We've discovered a real gem of a book to keep the bedtime poetry fresh - The Waldorf Book of Poetry.   While we've only had it in our book collection for a few weeks, I have a feeling it will make its way into many of our days, and perhaps even activities throughout our day.  The collection is organized into different themes - imagination (think fairies!), the seasons, fables, animals, history, numbers, grammar, and more! 

I find that story-time and poetry reading before bed is such a nice way to spend the final moments of the day with my children.  I aspire to start our days - once we're all ready to face the day - with a story that we can be mindful of as we head out into the world.  We did this well for about a week, and I'd like to pick up where we left off now that the mountain of food to be preserved has dwindled.  And I'm so thrilled to have another resource that can speak to their imaginations, hearts, and souls.