We have secrets.

Oh, they aren’t the adult-style, shatter-your-known-existence type of secrets. Our secrets are the whisper-in-your-bedtime-ear, giggle-when-they’ve-been-spoken kind.

When I put my littlest to bed, she wants a prayer, a song, a story, and a secret.

For our prayer we collect our day’s events and thank God for them. We also thank him for our family and friends and all the things that make sense to a two-year-old. I always sing to her “Jewels”, an old children’s hymn that my mother sang to me. And the story always begins like this:

“Once upon a time there was a little baby princess named Naomi. She lived in a big princess castle with her sister Princess Hopey and her mommy, Queen Mommy and her daddy King Daddy. And one morning…”

Every night. Every time I begin a story this way. We sing the same song and we pray. We have a routine.

And then we tell a secret. She pulls my ear close to her mouth and tells me about something that is real in her world or in her imagination. It is usually 3 or 4 words, something sweet and silly. And then I think of one to tell her in return. It is intimate. And it is quiet. And in the nightlight-dark of her room, we exchange ideas that will certainly not change the course of the world, but will change the course of our hearts.

And, I’ve been dying to tell you what we say to each other. But I can’t. Its a secret.