7:30 am Sariah wakes up crying. Not hard, but hard enough for tears. (Let me honest, it doesn't take much. Grandma (Mom) & Kristin always say, "MAN that girl has some huge crocodile tears!" And my friend Lacey out here in Iowa says "She can really put on the tears, can't she?)" The thing is, it's pretty genuine. That girl has the most sensitive heart! When it comes to someone seeming sad, she gets so concerned. But on the other hand, her feelings can be hurt a little easy. I try not to enable her when she seems like kind of a cry baby around other kids if someone pushes her or grabs a toy, but sometimes I scoop her up and explain and tell her how much I love her.
So back to Sariah crying. (I really should change my blog title to Scattered thoughts of the ADHD Mom).
When Sariah wakes up at unusual times for her in the wee hours of the morning, sometimes I think it's teething, but Grant has mentioned several times that he's pretty sure it was a bad dream. Well today it definitely was. Thankfully because of her recent ability to put several words together into sentences, she was able to describe it to me.
And with mostly reflective listening (and asking for a detail here or there like what color etc.) Here is what she communicated to me about her nightmare: She was in the car with me and "Papa" (Grandpa). And a "big biiiiiiiig dinosaur" was trying "a open a door." It was green. "HUUUUUGE dinosaur" "Trying a get in." "Sayin' Rawr RAWWWWR!" "I scared." She explained it a few times and it sounds like he was trying to get into "mommy's door." I held her and let her know it was okay, & I was okay "mommy's got you" it was just a dream and dinosaurs aren't real, they're just pretend, like her little toy dinosaurs. And she felt better. I also told her if something scary ever tried to get us, that daddy would make sure we were safe and tell the scary thing to go away.
This evening, Sariah and I were eating dinner at the table and I was feeding Annabelle sweet potatoes for the first time in the bumbo chair. Sariah remembered her dream from about 12 hours earlier. This time when talking about it she added that when the dinosaur was trying to get in again, "Daddy said get back! GET BACK DINOSAUR! GET BACK!" (This is what we would say to the turkey's in our backyard in Rigby if they'd circle around or get too close). Oh my gosh, it was so cute though that from what I told her this morning, about Grant protecting us, she was able to think about her dream and have Grant be the hero in the end. (Sorry Grandpa! You've just been replaced)!! Haha. Anyway, I'm sitting here and am so grateful for communication. I'm grateful that my barely 2 year old is able to express to me something that frightened her and that I was able to comfort her. I'm grateful for a brave husband who would totally find a way to defeat a dinosaur with his bare hands if it meant keeping his family safe. I mean, he'd probably just use his gun, but if that wasn't an option, he'd choke that thing out like a BOSS!
