Christy's Afternoon

Hey! I wrote a story about my afternoon yesterday. It may sound strange, but it's all true. If you lived in my house, you would understand!

My Afternoon

It was one of those rare, agenda-free, homemade-lunch afternoons
I sat in my husband’s recliner, poring over a new cookbook, when out of the corner of my mind’s eye, I caught a glimpse of something irresistible!

There was a cuddly little nap edging toward me!

I knew that if I stayed in the embrace of the chair, I would need a blanket to welcome it.
But, if I got up to forage for a blanket, the skittish critter would be frightened away for good.

So I crept away to my as-yet-unmade bed.

I gently un-tousled the heavy quilts and slipped under them and waited.
Naps are funny things. They’ll only come to you if you’re not interested in them.

So I pretended very hard that I wasn’t.

The phone rang and spooked it, so I reluctantly got out of bed and gave up.
My children offered sympathy, but I think they were mostly disappointed that they would once again be under my supervision.

So my daughter took my hand and led me back to bed.

She vowed to help me. She said that if I was snuggling her, perhaps I’d look disinterested enough. This would allow the nap to feel safer in its approach.
We lay there, whispering love like mothers and daughters do, each caressing the face of the other.

“Naps are invisible, you know,” she whispered.

“They sneak up from behind,” she said, and she made a pair of legs from two of her fingers. “What happens next?” I asked. “Do they sit on your head and smother you to sleep?”
“No, silly!” she said, tip-toeing the finger-legs up my cheek. “They creep, creep, creep…..

“And jump into your eye!” she exclaimed, poking me in the left one.

“OH!” I said, startled. I realized now that she was perhaps not helping as much as her good intention had promised she would.
So we enlisted the aid of her big brother. He would rather have both of us girls completely infested with naps.

That would make world domination much easier.

We girls explained the art of nap-hunting; how you must be still, alert, and nonchalant.
This art is, however, wasted on little boys. What erupted upon his entrance was a burst of guttural sound and violent movement.

Naps don’t like that sort of thing.

With an exasperated sigh, I owned the fact that this would not be the afternoon I had planned. But I did manage to surrender to the moment that presented itself. All three of us lay there, our minds no longer occupied with the hunt.
And there came flying overhead an entire flock of squealing, flapping, noisy giggles! We held out our arms in invitation.

They landed on our heads and nearly smothered us!