Title: Slow Down

Author: this is purely Karen, she gets full credit.

Posted: November 5, 2004

Disclaimer: I do not own the characters, not the excerpts from the books, Jesse Bear, What Will You Wear, and The Dog That Went Too Fast.

Maddus, Bob; Ron Krueger, Betsy Hernandez, Tony Salerno; The Dog That Went Too Fast. Anthony Paul, Inc, Pleasanton CA. 1986

Carlstrom, Nancy White. Jesse Bear, What Will You Wear? Macmillian Publishing Company, New York. 1986.

Would Buffy have these two books to read to her daughters? Probably not, and if she did, they wouldn't be in very good condition. But does that matter? Not to me. These are my favorite children's books, and I used them for a French Project using the Imparfait.

And I promise that someday I will organize these into an order, but today is not that day, and tomorrow's not looking good either, sorry!

From now on, if you would like to see something come from these, let me know! Xander babysitting? I can try...Just give me something to work with, not "please continue."

She watched as she paced. When she was closest, she pounced.

"Wead. Momma, wead!" she tugged on her arm.

"Where is he?" she muttered. Her baby girl pulled on her arm, "I'm sorry, baby, Mommy's busy."

"I'll read to you," she took her sister's hand and led her into the bedroom.

Buffy smiled, distracted, before looking at her watch and pacing again.

In her moody packing, she passed the open bedroom door.

"Jesse Bear, what will you wear?

What will you wear in the morning?

My shirt of red

Pulled over my head

Over my head in the morning."

She had forgotten an extra stake, her lucky, trusty stake. Where was it? She found it a few minutes later, under the bed, and passed the door again to put it in her heavy duffel bag.

"Jesse bear, what will you wear

What will you wear at noon?

I'll wear my chair.

You'll wear your chair?

I'll wear my chair

'Cause I'm stuck in there

Stuck in my chair at noon."

She stuffed Mr. Pointy into her bag, before looking out the window, glancing at her watch, and pacing in the same lopsided rectangle again.

Oh, God, her axe! What if they ran into something nasty?

She'd never get out if he didn't get home soon!

She passed their door again, and noticed they had changed books. This one was about...a dog, she thought. She really didn't have time to worry about it.

"Hey! Slow down! Slow down! You're not going to get these feathers into the cart that way!"

But Snips was in such a scurry and flurry...

Now where'd she put that axe? She hadn't seen it in the chest. Maybe the one under the bed? Nope. Where was that damned axe?

She finally found it at the back of the closet. Kinda negligent, but she didn't have time to clean up, so she dumped the broadsword she found with it into the largest chest.

"It just takes time to smell a flower

Or watch a butterfly fly

There are still sixty minutes in every hour

Don't try to make the time rush by

You're moving too fast, slow down

You've got to keep your feet on the ground."

Ashleigh's sweet voice cut through the fogs she seemed to survive in these days, and she stopped to listen to her youngest sister turned daughter read.

"...you can't rush a sunset

Or make a bird hurry his song

Don't wait 'til everything's perfect

Live your life all day long"

She looked at the killing device in her hands, and thought of the girls waiting for her to teach them to kill. Then she looked at her daughters, and realized she wasn't even sure she knew Ashleigh could read. She spent day after frustrating day with them, only apart between 8:30 and 3, how could she have missed something so big?

She set the axe down outside the room, before silently entering as Ashleigh finished the song. Alex hugged Bear closer to her as Buffy sat down next to her. Ashleigh went to hand over the book, but she stopped her.

"You finish it. You're doing great."

She listened to her girl read, and a smile came to her face. She joined in a few pages later when it came time for the next song, and she helped her through a few stumbles, buth other than that, she was silent.

"Sorry I'm late Buffy, I know you have palces to be..."

"Shh!" she hushed him.

"The princess got the most wonderful pillow ever made. And Snips, well, he became the most trusted fetcher of things in all the Land of Pleasant.

"The End," Ashleigh closed the book, a huge smile on her face.

"Wead," Alex said weakly from where she was asleep, her head in Buffy's lap.