It’s the tenderest part of our day – giving you both a goodnight kiss as you sleep peacefully in your beds.
It’s the end to our evening rituals.
First, we lock the house up, to keep us all safe as we sleep. Then Daddy and I come upstairs to brush our teeth. We pass your bedrooms on the way up to our attic room, and we both stop in to steal a goodnight kiss and tell you that we love you.
Nell, your room is first. We find you snuggled up with one or other of your many teddies. Breathtakingly beautiful. Your rosebud lips pout in your sleep. Your cheeks are always flushed with dreaming. It’s easy to kiss your forehead without even a stir. To tell you that we love you and wish you sweet dreams.
Then it’s your turn, Sidney. You are always, always holding Bear. I think I love him almost as much as you do for the amount of comfort he’s brought you over your six years in this world. You lie angelic. Perfect.
But you are not so easy to steal a kiss from. You sleep so lightly; wavering on the edge of wakefulness to the extent that your dreams are loud, shouty things that make us smile to hear them as we read upstairs. Often you stir when we kiss your forehead and we have to shush you back to dreaming. But it’s worth the risk.
Because we can’t ever NOT perform this goodnight ritual now. And it HAS become a ritual.
Not only is it the sweetest end to whatever kind of day we’ve all had. Our kisses have become like talismans, keeping you both safe while we all sleep.
There’s such a desperate desire to protect you from any harm. That’s why rituals like this evolve and stick around. It’s the soul’s way of trying to control the uncontrollable.
So we keep the house safe with keys and locks.
And we try to keep you safe with our kisses.
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