misty moment

Okay, when I was little, I had a stuffed Snoopy and a blue blanket. I had them when I was not so little as well -- they even came along with me to college. But eventually they made their way into storage, and for about ten years they've just rattled around in bins as I've moved here and there, just one of those mementos you can't throw away and yet have no immediate need for any longer. Last night my daughter was scared of bad dreams, unwilling to go asleep, and hitting on some brainstorm out of my subconscious I went into her closet where I'd fortuitously put the bin of stuffed animals from my childhood, and I brought out Snoopy and the blanket. I told her how they'd been my special nighttime friends when I was little and that they chased away bad dreams. Anna clung to them all night and declared they did keep the bad dreams away when she woke this morning. Now Snoopy and the blanket are downstairs, having an entirely new set of adventures, thirty years after they began. I have to say, this is the part of parenting I really really enjoy.