A short message for grown-ups. Looking for a fun way to keep the Bluey fans in your home busy with imaginative, screen-free play?
The Bluey Supermarket Play Set is here, standing over 15 inches tall and packed with surprises across three levels of fun.
Inspired by the episode Kids, this set comes with exclusive Bluey and Bingo figures, including Bingo holding her lollipop.
There's a real working escalator, a rooftop cafe, and even an intercom with 24 different sound effects your kids will love.
With over 15 play pieces, shelves to explore, carts to fill, and stickers to decorate, your little ones can recreate favorite scenes or invent new ones of their own.
It also works with all your other Bluey figures for even more imaginative adventures.
The Bluey supermarket playset is available at all major retailers.
A short message for grown-ups. Parents, I think we've all had those times when everyone in the family is off on their own personal devices.
Wouldn't it be great if you could find an activity that everyone will agree on?
Something that's both active and fun at the same time?
Imagine that. Families everywhere are discovering Nex Playground, an active game system where your body powers the play.
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Just play naturally. And the games are so great and immersive.
Go flying in the world of how to train your dragon, dance with Barbie, pop bubbles in Gabby's dollhouse, or master some moves with Kung Fu Panda. right from your living room.
Even better, Next Playground is kid-safe, with no ads, in-app purchases, or mature content.
Next Playground is your feel-good solution to these long summer days.
Want to learn more? Visit nextplayground.com.
That's nextplayground.com to explore active family gaming today.
Hello, friends, and welcome to Sleep Tight Stories.
Each week, we share a few shout-outs and birthday wishes for listeners who help support the show.
It's a small way we say thank you, and it always makes us smile.
Mama and Papa would like to wish Matea, Lorenzo, and Noah a wonderful new school year in seventh, fourth, and second grades.
Happy learning! Shout out to Eilish Watson, who is nine years old.
Mom and Dad are so proud of your bravery and kindness in adjusting to your big move from New Zealand to Australia.
They hope all your dreams come true. Love you to the stars, Mommy, Daddy, and Myla.
Happy belated golden birthday to Teddy Whitaker from Wilmington, North Carolina, who turned eight on August 8.
Mommy, Daddy, and your big brother, Jeremy, love you so much.
Happy birthday to our favorite Camille in Plano, Texas, turning eight on August 7th from Mom, Dad, Graham, and Jonas.
Happy birthday to Aislinn and Owen. We know you will have an amazing year full of adventures and learning.
Keep being curious, kids. Love, Mommy and Daddy.
Happy 6th birthday to Ellis from North Richmond Hills, Texas on August 18th.
We love you. Love Mommy, Daddy, Hattie, and Charlie.
Happy 9th birthday to Sadie Hinton from New Richmond, Wisconsin on August 13th.
Mom, Dad, Maddie, and Winnie love you so much.
Happy 13th birthday to Betsy in Port Washington.
Stay gold. mom dad ben shelby and pony boy love you dearly and are so proud of you happy birthday ravid may this year bring you lots of adventures and new things to discover always remember that mom dad zan zan and the whole family loves you so much happy birthday to charlie on august 10th your family love you and are so proud of you happy 10th birthday to our amazing son benjamin Dada, Mommy, Newton, Oscar, and Bay J love you to the sun and back.
We are very proud of who you are. We can't wait to see what adventures you will have in the future.
And happy 10th birthday to Audrey in Newburyport, Massachusetts.
Welcome to Double Digits. Thanks for making us laugh and smile with your kind and loving heart.
Love, Dad, Mom, Emmy, Luna, and Pickles.
Happy birthday to you all and thank you for supporting the show.
If you'd like to support our podcast and enjoy ad-free episodes, unlock bonus stories, and so much more, you can join Sleep Type Premium.
Subscribe in just two taps via the link in the show notes.
Now on to our story. Coco is a crow who lives near an old man who rescued her one day.
When Coco is three, she hears the sounds of other crows calling, and things start to change.
Coco the Crow The first rays of the morning sun stretched across the rolling red hills of Prince Edward Island, painting the old man's garden in shades of gold and pink.
Coco perched on her favorite branch of the twisted old apple tree, watching wisps of fog drift lazily over the potato fields that stretched toward the distant shore.
The salty breeze carried the familiar sense of sea and soil, ruffling her glossy black feathers.
Below her, the old man emerged from his weathered farmhouse, his boots crunching softly on the grass.
Purple lupins swayed gently along the garden's edge while late summer roses climbed the wooden fence that separated his small yard from the endless red earth beyond.
Good morning little one, he called softly, setting down a small dish filled with wild blueberries and chopped walnuts near the base of her tree.
Coco responded with a gentle caw and tilted her head, watching him tend to his vegetable patch where tomatoes hung heavy on their vines.
This was their ritual, had been for three years now. ever since he'd found her as a tiny, injured fledgling after a terrible storm.
The garden was her whole world. Safe, predictable, filled with love.
But then, drifting across the morning air, came a sound that made Coco's heart flutter with something she couldn't name.
The distant, wild calling of crows somewhere beyond the potato fields.
Her head turned sharply toward the sound, and for the first time in her life, the garden felt... small.
For the next week, those distant crow calls haunted Coco's thoughts.
Every morning, she found herself scanning the horizon beyond the red hills, listening for those sounds that seemed to tug at something... deep inside her chest.
She began practicing different calls, sharp warning cries, soft questioning chirps, bold territorial announcements, but none of them sounded quite right.
Her voice carried a gentleness that seemed foreign to the harsh, confident calls drifting from the woods.
The old man noticed her distraction. Instead of eagerly diving into her breakfast, Coco would perch motionless on her branch, head cocked towards the distant potato fields.
When he spoke to her about his plans to harvest the late tomatoes or repair the garden gate, she barely responded with her usual attentive head tilts.
You're hearing them again, aren't you? He said one foggy morning, settling onto the wooden bench beneath her tree.
His weathered hands wrapped around his steaming coffee mug as he watched her strain to listen to the calls that seemed fainter today.
Coco looked down at him, then back toward the fields.
She tried to voice what she was feeling, a soft, uncertain caw that sounded almost like a question.
The old man was quiet for a long moment. remembering the tiny, broken creature he'd nursed back to health in this very garden.
She'd been his constant companion through three seasons of planting and harvesting, through winter storms that rattled the old farmhouse, through quiet evenings when loneliness might have settled in.
Maybe it's time you met some cousins, he said finally, though his voice carried a tremor he tried to hide.
The McPherson woods aren't far. We could, we could take a walk tomorrow morning.
Coco's bright black eyes met his, and in them, he saw both excitement and fear, the eternal push and pull between safety and discovery.
The next morning, they made their way along the red dirt path that wound between potato fields toward the McPherson woods.
Coco rode on the old man's shoulder, her talons gripping gently through his worn flannel shirt.
The closer they got to the tree line, the louder the crow calls became, a complex symphony of family chatter, territorial announcements, and foraging signals.
In a small clearing where wild blueberry bushes grew thick, they found them, a family of six crows, picking through fallen berries and overturned leaves.
Coco's heart hammered as she called out tentatively, a soft, hopeful caw that meant hello in the only crow language she knew.
The effect was immediate and startling. Every crow froze mid-peck, heads snapping toward them in perfect unison.
Then came the harsh response Angry caw, caw, caws that seemed to say, stranger, danger, wrong, wrong, wrong.
One large crow spread his wings wide and took several aggressive hops in their direction.
Coco quickly tucked her head under the old man's chin, her small body trembling.
It's okay, little one, he murmured, his gentle voice a stark contrast to the hostile cawing.
First meetings are always hard. Three days later, they tried again.
This time, Coco brought a peace offering, a shiny button she'd found near the garden gate.
Crows loved shiny things. Surely this would show her good intentions.
She flew from the old man's shoulder toward a pair of crows perched on a fallen log. landing a respectful distance away.
One crow, smaller, younger looking, tilted his head with curious interest at the button, but his companion let out a sharp warning cry and lunged forward, wings spread, driving Coco back with aggressive posturing.
She retreated quickly to the old man's waiting arms, the button forgotten on the forest floor.
You know, he said thoughtfully as they walked home, when I was seven, my family moved here from Halifax.
The island children didn't understand my city ways at first.
It took almost a whole summer before they accepted me into their games.
A week later, as Autumn painted the maple leaves brilliant red and gold, they witnessed something that changed everything.
A young crow was struggling beneath a towering oak tree, desperately trying to crack open a stubborn acorn.
He pecked and clawed at it, growing more frustrated with each failed attempt.
Despite the previous rejections, Coco felt her heart stir with sympathy.
She knew exactly how to solve this problem.
The old man had taught her to wedge tough nuts into tree bark crevices. then use leverage to crack them open.
Before the old man could stop her, Coco flew down and demonstrated the technique, carefully positioning the acorn in a bark groove and applying pressure at just the right angle.
Crack! The shell split perfectly. The young crow, Ash, she would later learn, gave a delighted chirp, and devoured the nut meat gratefully.
More importantly, his joyful calls attracted the attention of the other crows, who watched this act of unexpected kindness with tilted heads and suddenly quieter voices.
An elder crow, her feathers silver-tipped with age, approached slowly. and performed what looked unmistakably like a greeting, a gentle bob of her head and a soft questioning caw.
For the first time, Coco didn't feel the need to flee.
Over the following weeks, as the island's famous autumn winds stripped the last leaves from the maples, Coco began to learn the intricate language of her newfound family.
She discovered that crows had different calls for everything.
Sharp alerts for approaching hawks, gentle murmurs for all is well, excited chatter when someone found an especially good foraging spot.
Her own voice, she realized, wasn't wrong.
It was simply unique. Where other crows called with harsh authority, Coco's gentle tones seemed to calm nervous fledglings and soothe squabbles between territorial males.
The elder crow, whom the others called Wisdom, began seeking her out, specifically when conflicts arose in the murder.
The old man established a new routine, visiting the woods every few days while always returning home together.
He'd bring a thermos of tea and sit quietly on a fallen log, watching Coco navigate her two worlds with growing confidence.
Ash, the young crow she'd helped with the acorn, became her closest friend.
He was endlessly curious about humans and would perch boldly near the old man, chattering questions in rapid crow speak, while Coco translated the peaceful intentions behind the old man's gentle movements.
She's teaching them that not all humans are dangerous, the old man observed one crisp October morning, watching as three young crows tentatively approached his outstretched hand, holding sunflower seeds.
Gradually, the murder accepted Coco as what Wisdom called the Bridge Crow. one who belonged to both the wild sky and the cultivated earth.
She was neither fully wild nor fully tame, but something altogether new and valuable, a translator between worlds, a keeper of kindness in a place where survival often meant suspicion.
The hostile cawing had transformed into welcoming calls whenever she arrived. two springs later the apple tree in the old man's garden witnessed something magical coco returning with her own family she and ash had built their nest in the tallest oak of the mcpherson woods and now three tiny black heads poked curiously over the edge of their carefully woven home come little ones coco called softly to her children as they made their first tentative flights to the garden.
I want you to meet someone very special.
The old man watched from his bench. His weathered face creased with delight as the baby crows tumbled and fluttered around the familiar apple tree.
Coco's children had inherited her gentle nature.
Approaching him with cautious curiosity, rather than the wild wariness of typical crows.
Mama, why does the big creature share food? chirped the smallest one, eyeing the dish of berries and nuts below.
Because, Coco explained, settling beside her old friend, some friendships grow stronger with kindness than with caution.
The visits became regular. Every few days, the crow family would arrive with small treasures, smooth pebbles from the shore, interesting twigs, occasionally a particularly shiny bottle cap.
In return, the old man ensured they always found fresh water in his birdbath and scattered winter seeds during the harsh island storms.
Watching them, he realized that Coco's wild family hadn't replaced their bond.
It had simply helped her become the fullest version of herself, capable of bridging two worlds with grace.
As the evening light painted the potato fields in soft purple and golds, Coco perched on her old favorite branch with her family nestled close beside her.
The familiar apple tree creaked gently in the salt-tinged breeze, just as it had during countless sunsets before.
The old man sat on his weathered bench below, sipping his evening tea and watching the young crows practice their calls, a mixture of wild crow chatter and Coco's gentler tones that somehow sounded like music.
Time to go home, Ash called softly, as the first stars appeared over the island sky.
The Crow family prepared to return to their roost in the McPherson woods, but Coco lingered for one last moment.
She flew down to give the old man a tender head bump against his weathered hand, then offered him a special call, soft and melodic, a sound that belonged only to them.
He smiled, his eyes twinkling in the fading light.
Sweet dreams, little one. See you tomorrow.
And she would. She always would. And that is the end of our story.
Good night. Sleep tight.
