Friday May 7, 2010

My daughters seem to both be sick today. Anaya is her usual phlemmy self and Solara says she has a headache and feels "about to throw up".

Anaya fell asleep early and I lay her in the bed for Brent to watch her. I then took my homeopathic first aid kit and some melatonin and went into Solara's room. Having already gotten three big glasses of water into her and dinner, I knew that perhaps rest would be the next best thing for her.

Exhausted and nauseated, my little girl cried fat little tears as I tucked her into her bed. I gave her a dropperful of the liquid melatonin and consulted the "Homeopathic Remedies" book for what I should do for her nausea. After some reading I gave her a pellet of Nux and a pellet of tabaccum. She asked me what it was. I said "Very small medicine sweets, hold them under your tongue." She did as I asked and lay back against the pillow.

I rummaged through her bookshelf, realizing with sudden clarity that I hadn't gotten Solara any new books for quite some time. I am not reading to her often enough. I thought to myself. Oh no! There's nothing on this shelf I haven't read to her a thousand times! But just then I saw the spine of a little brown book peeking out from between the rest.

"The Velveteen Rabbit" By Margery Williams. Ah ha! I thought and pulled it out. I haven't read this one since I was a little kid. I turned back towards the bed.

I pulled the covers up over my bigger baby girl and sat down on the edge of the bed. I began turning the pages, keeping my voice soft and sweet, lulling her to sleep within the first few words. But I couldn't stop reading. About halfway through the book I realized that with Solara sound asleep I could read in mind, and I closed my mouth and finished the book.

Believe it or not there are beautiful pearls of wisdom in "The Velveteen Rabbit". I'd like to share my favorite pearl with you. It is a conversation between the Rabbit and the Skin horse one day in the nursery.

"What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?"
"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."
"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.
"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."
"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?"
"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't often happen to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."

I finished the book, closed it's pages and crept from the room.