It was about this time Charlie went
through a time of bad dreams. He would
wake up crying and scared. I’d go into
his room and sit with him until he could relax and go back to sleep. This went on for several nights in a row and
I began to feel the effects of not getting an uninterrupted rest. One night while I was rubbing his tummy and
soothing him with some silly story, I came up with an idea. I told Charlie I had learned a way to change
what he would dream. I told him I had
found a way to turn his dream channel as I gently poked my finger into his
belly button and twisted it back and forth.
"Let's try here," I said
rubbing the left side of his belly button.
"This is the channel to help you dream about cows and this is the
spot to dream of rabbits and over here is the spot to dream of dogs." I kept rubbing his tummy and poking his belly
button as I named every animal we had on our farm. “There,” I said, “Let’s try a
new channel and see if the dreams are better.”
As luck would have it he believed me,
turned over, and quickly went to sleep.
He was convinced mom had come up with a solution. He had fewer and fewer bad dreams. A few weeks later I heard whimpering coming
from Charlie's room. When I went to
check on him I found his hand laid across his tummy with his index finger
circling his belly button. I took his
hand in mine for a moment before laying it back on his bed. He settled back into a comfortable sleep. The next morning he told me he'd had a bad
dream and couldn't think of what animal he should to dream about.
There was nothing Charlie loved more
than animals. I went to work the next
day making him an animal quilt to hang on his wall. Every day I made two or three blocks to add
to the quilt. On the last day I included
a spider on one of the blocks. I read to
Charlie from the book of instructions on making the spider. The book said never make a spider with eight
legs because it is nearly impossible to do.
Always make a spider with six legs.
When I finished reading the instructions Charlie leaned in, adjusting
his glasses, and took a close look at the spider. "Mommy, my spider has eight
legs!" Yes it does I boasted, then without
missing a beat I continued to read from the instruction book, only this time,
the words were not really there. I said
out loud, "If you ever make an eight legged spider and it turns out right
it just might be magic."
When the older kids came home from
school that afternoon Charlie took them each to his room and showed off his
animal quilt which was now hanging on the wall.
I listened from the hall as he chose his words very carefully explaining
to them how the animals on the quilt were all the animals he could now choose
to dream of. He ended his quilt tour by telling them the
story about the magic spider. They each
complemented Charlie on his quilt and smiled at me as they left the room.
About two weeks later in the middle
of the night I was awakened by Charlie in a panic. “Mommy, hurry, come here I need you to change
the channel.” he was screaming. I did and it worked! The bad dreams stopped.
It’s a wonderful feeling when your
child believes in you so much!
There must have really been magic in
that spider. When fair time came around
I entered it and won 1st place. Charlie
was even prouder of that blue ribbon than me!
What a wonderful creative mom you are, this story brought a tear to my eyes. :)
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