expressing his dreams

We ask Tyce each morning what he dreamed about. We all know that in our dreams is a common place to work out our thoughts and emotions. I think it is a way for us to see what is going on in his sweet little head. It is interesting to see how his dreams have changed over the past few months.

At first when we started asking what he dreamed about, he shared about scary dreams he was having. It was a break through for us to understand what scared him. Spider man climbing up the house. It took me a bit to figure it out with his limited English. But I know that "ladybug" (which is how he shared it) is his generic name for all bugs and creepy crawly things. And I was able to understand it was a bug that climbs. Once we figured out it was spider man, we went to his room and threw out anything with that image on it (2 jammie shirts). I took him in my arms and comforted him and reminded him that he is safe here and mommy and daddy are her for you. I also asked him if he had scary dreams while he was in Ethiopia, and he cried and said yes. Then he said "Fikadu alone". Meaning...no one was there to comfort him after a bad dream. That's enough to break your heart. Poor sweet thing. He seems to have gotten over the spider man dreams and doesn't share much about scary dreams anymore.

Then he moved onto dreaming about his friends from the orphanage. He would share about how they were dancing together with Abushy (little brother) and him in his dreams each night. At this time, he had seen some pictures of his friends on other blogs and seemed to be missing them and grieving the loss of his close HH friends. We have stopped looking at pictures of his playmates in hopes that he is able to understand more that our family is forever. It seems to be wise to let some time pass before these kids can fully process all their feelings of their previous life. We have been told to wait 9-12 months before we initiate pictures of the life in Ethiopia.

Tyce's most recent dreams include going for scooter rides with Daddy. You see...this boy LOVES his daddy. I'm sure it helps that they are STILL co-sleeping in the boy's room and get to wake up and talk first thing in the morning. Chuck is one busy man, and time with the family is limited. So, I love that he has positive feelings about the time he gets to spend with Daddy.

Chuck did take Tyce on one small and very slow scooter ride down our street. It must have made a lasting impression. Enough for a small boy to dream about.