One summer evening during a thunderstorm a mother was tucking her small boy into bed. She was about to turn off the light when he asked with a tremor in his voice, “Mommy, will you sleep in here tonight?”

The mother smiled and gave him a hug. “I can’t dear,” she said. “I have to sleep in Daddy’s room.”

A long silence was broken at last by his shaking little voice: “The big sissy.”