I’ve tried to start this post half a dozen times – but I haven’t been able to find the right words. Where do you start when you haven’t posted in almost 6 months and the world is now a completely different place than it was last year? What do you say when we’re all struggling to adapt to a world where social distancing is the norm and we’ve been working from home (if we’re lucky enough to still have our jobs!) for the last two months with no known end-date? Is it worthwhile to write about crafting when there are so many more important issues to discuss?
I’ve been struggling not only to write this post, but also to do any crafting in general. I had such a different view in my head of what 2020 would entail at the beginning of the year. But, since January, I’ve suffered some big losses, had some health issues, and spent a good deal of time devoting most of my energy just to working, parenting and focusing on things for which I am grateful so I wouldn’t spend time dwelling on what might have been.
I really do have so much to be grateful for (not the least of which are my amazing boys and husband and the fact that I still have a job I can do from home!), so that has really helped me to generally keep things in perspective and to mostly heal over the losses. But it still feels strange to post about things as seemingly frivolous as crafting.
But crafting isn’t so frivolous, right? It allows us to stay busy when we may suddenly have some extra time on our hands. It allows us to feel like we’re accomplishing something when that feeling of success may be hard to come by in other areas of our lives. It allows us to express our creativity. And, in the case my 5 year olds, at least, it allows us to prevent nightmares! (I love when crafts allow me to feel magical.)
A while back, one of my boys started complaining pretty regularly about having nightmares. We tried discussing them, avoiding anything remotely scary before bedtime, and reading about nightmares (I particularly love The Berenstain Bears and the Bad Dream), but he was still having them. So, I suggested I make him a dreamcatcher to catch up all the bad dreams before they could get to him. He loved that idea!
And, honestly, he hasn’t complained about having a bad dream since we hung it up in his room.
My other little guy was skeptical that a dreamcatcher could really work. “It isn’t sticky. How will it catch the dreams if it isn’t sticky?” he asked me. He told me he didn’t want a dreamcatcher of his own (probably because he wasn’t having bad dreams and didn’t think they could work anyway!), so I only made the one.
Recently, though, the skeptical one had a couple of bad dreams and I asked him if he now wanted a dreamcatcher of his own. And suddenly, he wasn’t so skeptical after all.
He wanted it to be very colorful, so that’s what he got! He told me, “It sure is pretty!” and proudly hung it up in his room this evening.
Of course, because the new one was so colorful, the other kiddo asked that his have some additional color added as well.
And now I have two happy boys who I hope will sleep well with no more bad dreams. (I especially hope that tonight as I had a sick kiddo keep me up most of the night last night and I’m exhausted!)
This was a nice quick project that allowed me to make a little boy pretty happy. I’m hoping that this quick and easy project will jumpstart my crafting mojo!