The Sleep Book by Dr Seuss

I just got done reading the girls their bedtime stories. I read the The Sleep Book, it is one of their favorites. As I was reading it, I was constantly reminded of Joel. I kept remembering how much he disliked reading this book to the girls. One, it is SOOO long, two it is a tongue twister and for those of you who knew Joel, he did not like tongue twisters, he could not get all of the words out. He always felt like it took him twice as long to read it to him, granted, he would read it, if he could not convince the girls to pick out another one. I would laugh so much because he would try to skip pages and Faith would pick up on it. Or he would say he had to go "potty" and would be "right" back, hoping they would forget and go to sleep. That never happened. Once or twice he asked me to come in and finish and the girls would not have that either. It was a great memory and even though it was hard, knowing that he will not ever be able to read another story to them in person, it was a good memory. I know he was with me then, reading to them, I felt at peace for the first time that day. I know he was watching over us and reading the story with them. I only wish it was him, in person, standing in the doorway, watching me read to them like he had so many times before. I just remember something that Joel had talked about doing a long time ago, reading stories and video taping them for the girls so they would have them to listen to and watch when they wanted to. I wish we had gotten that done. I wish I had sent him a cheap video camera and books to him in Iraq so he could have done that while he was there. The girls would have absolutley loved that and it would be a great keep sake. That is one thing I regret right now, I wish we would have followed through on that.