Last night, I suggested…

Last night, I suggested Custard the Dragon for Kavi's bedtime book. Which turned out to be more fraught than anticipated, because there were a *lot* of new words I had to define for her, and a few made-up words which were confusing, and Anand liked the rhyming, which I demonstrated, but then insisted I read every page out loud after Kavi did, because her reading was often slow enough that you didn't really get the rhyme effect, and after all this, I'm not sure they actually liked the story, which I admit, ends on a bit of a down note (Custard keeps crying for his nice safe cage)

-- and oh, yes, a half hour after bedtime, Anand came and climbed into our bed because the pirate from the story was giving him bad dreams, and I told him there were no pirates around and he said they might be on the ocean in their ships, and I said we were very far away from the ocean, but that was entirely unconvincing, and then I tried saying that if a pirate showed up, then Ellie would eat it, the way Custard ate the pirate in the book, but Anand wasn't having any of that, so instead we snuggled for a while, until he got sleepy. Which was ALL way more than I anticipated from a book I had vague memories of liking as a kid. Parents of littles, consider yourself warmed.

Belinda was as brave as a barrel full of bears,
Ink and Blink chased lions down the stairs,
Mustard was as brave as a tiger in a rage,
But Custard cried for a nice safe cage.

(Oh, and also, Belinda, Ink, Blink, and Mustard are really quite mean to Custard before the pirate shows up, and my kids were a bit distressed by that. They do not approve of tickling someone after he says no.)