The Annual Bear Picnic: A Wandering Sleep Story
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Hello everyone, this is Ria with a quick note. This is a full episode preview of a story featured on Little Stories for Sleep, a bedtime podcast just for Little Stories Premium subscribers. The episode I'm sharing with you today is part of a series I'm calling Wanderlust.

Wandering Sleep Stories. These new stories are peaceful, calming, and perfect for that last track on a bedtime playlist. On Little Stories for Sleep, Wandering Sleep Stories have no intro or outro. It's just the story framed by soft music.

So grab your weighted blanket, snuggle up, and fall asleep to this sweet tale. Lavender asked about it. The moment. The very moment. She blinked awake from her big sleep. Didn't even give her mother time to stretch. Just immediately lobbed questions.

When will it be, exactly? And who will be there? Will all my cousins be there? What about Lilac? Do you think Lilac will be there? Oh, I'm so excited. I can hardly breathe. Mother Bear studied her lovable, flighty daughter. Said, please do breathe, my dear.

and went off to greet the spring forest with Lavender hurrying along behind her. The questions did not stop. Each day, Lavender dreamed up new things to wonder about.

How many types of pie do you think there will be? There will be pie, won't there? Will I get to try them all? Or will there be a rule about how many you can eat? Will it run past sundown? I was hoping fireflies would come out and I can chase them with lilac. I mean, if she's there. Will there be music? I have a fuzzy memory of bears playing on fiddles and banjos. Is that true? Did that happen, Mother?

To that question, asked on an especially green day in June, Mother Bear fixed her daughter with an amused smile, set down the basket she'd been filling with mulberries, and settled beneath a tall oak that provided a haven of shade in the otherwise brightly lit spring woods. "'Come,' Mother said."

Sit. Mother Bear insisted on several long moments of silence before she'd say anything. At first, Lavender couldn't contain the thoughts coursing through her young mind. There were fiddles, weren't there? Oh, look at that moth. I wonder why it's out in the daytime. Can we go to the river today? Catch some fish?

Will there be fish at the picnic? I bet there will be fish. But eventually, after Mother Bear whispered, Hush now, listen to the forest, and pulled Lavender against her in the shade of the tree, the little bear calmed and quieted. Together, they listened to the faint buzzing of insects,

the dulcet bird calls and the rustling of plants as small creatures scurried in the underbrush searching for meals. "You know," Mother Bear said, "I was like you when I was young. After remaining in one place for so many months for my big sleep, I spent the spring and summer racing around

breathless, peppering my mother with endless questions. At this, Lavender gave a sheepish smile. Did you get answers to everything? Mother Bear lifted her nose to the breeze and breathed deeply, unhurried. Lavender snuggled closer, settling in.

A butterfly with brilliant, iridescent, emerald-green wings fluttered near Lavender's foot, then flitted sharply away when she wiggled a single toe. Not everything has an answer, Mother Bear finally said.

Her little daughter squirmed beside her, and Mother Bear could feel a new volley of questions coming. But, she added, before Lavender could interject, I do have an answer about the fiddles and the banjos. Yes, do you? Your fuzzy memory is correct. At last year's picnic, there were several bears playing music.

including a fiddle, a banjo. Ah, I knew it. I think there was a harmonica, and perhaps a tambourine. Yes, I'm quite sure there was a tambourine. Lavender stood up from the ground and bounded in a circle. Oh, I can't wait. What about the pies? I expect pies. Yes, Mother Bear said, her eyes twinkling.

But Lavender, she said, getting to her feet. Hmm? Mother Bear picked up her basket and began heading out from the shade of the oak. The picnic isn't guaranteed. Lavender trailed her into the sun. She felt a flood of heat on her back. What do you mean? I thought it took place every year.

Mother swiped a pawful of berries and deposited them in her basket. The weather does not always cooperate. One year, it was before you were born, there were so many stormy afternoons in a row, the picnic committee had to cancel it entirely.

Lavender plopped down to sit beside the buried shrub where her mother worked. This possibility had not occurred to her, not once. She peered up at the blue sky. There were wisps of clouds that reminded her of the cobwebs she'd seen in the den when she'd woken up from the big sleep.

Some of them had stretched from ceiling to floor. Spiders did not take the winter off. Aside from those wispy clouds, the sky was clear, the sun was so bright, Lavender had to shield her eyes with a paw and avoid looking anywhere close to it. How could it be that storms could ever come?

let alone every day for weeks. It was unthinkable on a day like this. But do you know what we did when it was cancelled? Mother said with a cheeky smile as she moved on from the berry bush and back to the trail. Lavender followed, silently now, as if somehow all her questions...

had led to the chance of bad weather. Mother Bear stopped at the riverbank and beckoned to her daughter to catch up. The water moved in a steady current. Bugs skittered across the surface, leaping at odd intervals. Sun fell through the trees.

Hitting the river in a rippling patchwork of light. We got together anyway, Mother said with a contented sigh. Had ourselves a picnic of sorts on a damp evening after a storm. Lavender grinned. Was there pie? There were a few pies. Not as many as usual, but there were some.

Music, Lavender said, her eyes sparkling. Your uncle brought his fiddle. What about fireflies? I remember catching at least three, Mother said with a smile. Come, let's catch a fish. Beginning the next morning, it rained in a steady drizzle. The forest masqueraded as a rainforest.

By the end of each day of foraging in the damp woods, Lavender and her mother had muddy feet and matted fur. Lavender wondered whether it would ever clear. She wondered what kind of picnic the bears would get. An official picnic with plenty of pie, or an improvised picnic with a single fiddle.

Then, one blistering hot morning, Mother Bear led her daughter out from their den and down to the riverbank. Heavy mist rose from the water's surface, and insects came out in force, as if making up for lost time. "The rain is done," Mother Bear said, "at least for a while."

"'It's a good thing, too,' she added mildly. "'Because today is the picnic.'" Lavender's memories of the picnic from last year were faded at the edges, so she was quite surprised by the sheer number of bears that showed up in the clearing that afternoon. They arrived carrying baskets, platters,

and sacks filled with treats to share. The elder bears organized things, arranging the food on boulders and fallen logs. Mother Bear and Lavender brought a mulberry pie, which was added to the dozen other pies decorating a large flat rock.

A band of five bears struck up on the west end of the clearing, and the more playful attendees soon migrated to the dance floor. The afternoon sun was warm, but not harsh that day. Cottonball clouds drifted overhead, and several bear cubs laid on the ground, staring up.

declaring what the clouds resembled in between fits of giggles. It is wonderful when the weather cooperates. Lavender loved every minute, though there was one thing missing, a very particular bear. She showed up

in the late afternoon, trailing her grandfather with a basket of dandelions swinging from one arm. Lilac. The cousins spent hours dancing to the music, romping around with the other young bears, eating much too many sweets. At sundown, the elder bears gathered around a campfire

telling stories of things that happened long ago. The cubs took a much-needed break from roughhousing, collapsing in a heap to watch the sky turn deep pastel colors over the treeline. But as soon as night truly fell, fireflies appeared.

Lights blinking here and there, beckoning the children up from their seats. With their energy renewed, they all got up, intent on making the most of this magical, enchanted, once-a-year event.