Count me to Sleep

Note: I discovered early on, when my daughter was two, that if I counted in the bedtime story, she would fall asleep by 20. At five years of age, sometimes I need to count to 60, however, many nights my daughter now asks me to count her to sleep! Here is one story, but you can make up millions of them.

Once upon a time, there was a little princess and her name was...Isabel. She was the most beautiful princess in the world. Her favorite color was...pink. Her dresses were pink, her shoes were pink, her hair was pink and her wand was pink. She had a wand because she wasn't just any old princess...she was a magical princess! She had a cousin, a prince, whose name was Joshua. His favorite color was...blue! He wore blue clothes, had a blue horse, blue running shoes AND a blue sword.

One day, Joshua called Isabel on the phone. "ISABEL!" he yelled across the phone line. "Can you come over and play?"

"Okay, JOSHUA!!" yelled back Isabel. "Where are you playing?"

"In my tower!" yelled back Joshua. "Just yell when you come over!"

"OKAY! BYE!" Isabel hung up the phone and called out for her pet dragon. "Pinky!" she called.

Flap, flap, flap. Out flew Pinky, Isabel's pink dragon. Isabel clambered onto Pinky's back and off they flew to Joshua's castle.

When they got there, Pinky flew away before Isabel had time to call out to Joshua. For some reason, the stairs were gone! So Isabel took out her wand and said, "Abracadabra, ziggeldy zairs, when I wave my wand, make some pink stairs!" And presto, alacazam, beautiful pink stairs appeared...all the way up to the tower.

Isabel started to climb (Note: Parents, this is where you start counting.) One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. When Isabel got to the tenth stair, she was zonked! So she took out her wand and said, "Abracadabra, ziggeldy zed, when I wave my wand, make me a pink bed!" And presto, alacazam, a beautiful pink bed appeared. Isabel was very tired, so she said to herself, "I'll close my eyes to twenty and then I'll start climbing again."

(Note, Parents...keep counting. By the time you get to twenty your little'un will be asleep. If not, have him/her climb another ten or twenty stairs and then have her/him summon a snack and then a bench for another rest of twenty. I guarantee, one of you will be asleep shortly.)
Copyright Wendy Spiegel, Los Angeles, CA, 2005. All rights reserved.