Robyn was out tonight, so I had an opprtunity (the first in a while) to get the kids ready and put them down to bed by myself. It’s certainly a busy time when you’re alone with two 17 month-old toddlers, but it’s fun, too. When the whole bedtime ritual comes together and your timing is right on, it’s not unlike good taijutsu. Oh, and it helps when your “opponents” are [b]really[/b] tired and have colds, too.

Since Gabriel always goes down after Chloe, we have a little more leeway and can sometimes spend a little more time with him without knowing that we have another kid waiting in the wings to have his teeth brushed and calmed down for sleep like we do with Chloe. So, once he was done with his milk, his teeth were brushed, his sleep-sack zipped and I was holding him in the living room, his blinking got slow and he put his head down on my arm. I carried him into their bedroom, turned on their little star that projects flying teddy bears onto the ceiling and laid Gabriel back so he could watch the show without straining his little neck. Chloe’s soft snores kept time as I stood there.

As I watched him in the weak light cast by the star, his face looked like the face of a much older child. Maybe an early teen. As I watched, my imagination ran with this and he seemed to age before my eyes. I pictured the endless number of possible life stories that could be ahead of him. Happy things, sad times, good choices and bad, careers, relationships, ups, downs, dangers and sources of joy…they all played out with incredible speed and clarity in the span of a few verses of Brahms’ Lullaby.

As his eyes began to shut, I was roused from my reverie and moved to lay him in his crib, but not before kissing his forehead and telling him I love him.