The Storyteller had nightmares last night, or terrors. What do you call it when a boy wakes up screaming six times? He stayed home from school today.
We had smoothies for breakfast, mine banana and peach, theirs blueberry and raspberry. I added silken tofu to both. They argued over how good the smoothies taste. They argued over how much each boy had.
We played together with the treehouse, the Storyteller and the Hero and I. They argued about the furniture placement. They argued about what is a pixie, what is a human, what is a gnome. Storyteller dabbed the pixies with flight powder, but it didn't work. One fell off the climbing rope. A starry nature spirit came to the rescue.
I asked the Storyteller when he would like to do some math with me. "I already know math," he said. Alas, there is always more math to know. The Hero wanted to do schoolwork right away. The Storyteller wanted to do it at three o'clock. They argued. We finally settled on 11:30.
In the meantime, Storyteller was going to write in the miniature faerie book. Hero said, "Mama? You remember that I was going to write another book? Well now is the time for that!" They argued about the size of their homemade books. They argued about the Hero's ability to write, about the sensibility of Storyteller's storytelling, about who knows more, about who decides what is true, the existence of magickal symbols, of magick, and of gods.
I brought out the Tarot cards, suggesting that the Storyteller copy these into the faerie book. Story declined. Hero decided to copy them into his book.
I explained how to read a card. He wanted to copy The Fool. I told him that yellow is a symbol of the intellect (and explain what 'intellect' means) and the sky is associated with divinity. If someone wonders what's up with gods not answering their prayers, and they pull The Fool, you can say the gods are thinking about it, have a reason, and are not ignoring them or not hearing them.
"Isn't that cool?" I ask the kids.
They both look thoughtful for a moment.Hero says, "No."
Story adds, "No," then, after a solemn pause in which both boys at me dubiously, Story adds, "I think that's crazy."
"Probably lots of people think that's crazy," Hero concludes. They are finally on the same page about something.
It's good to see you back. How is school going for the Storyteller?
ReplyDeleteNight terrors. Fun. My youngest son had them for a long time. So far it has been six months, no seven, since he had one. Knock wood.
ReplyDeleteInteresting story, though. When I was in labor with my fourth child (youngest son is second oldest), my son had 3 of them. My friend who was "assigned" to him went in during his night terrors and he would be moaning a word (Stop, or Mama, or no) and then she'd go back to me and I'd be moaning the same word. The house was big enough that there was no way he physically heard what I was saying.
Night terrors are so hard. We've had nights of 6 or 7 and some with walking involved. Hopefully they will pass soon, mama.