Dream Catchers

  “Mommy, I had a terrible dream last night.”  Callie looked up at me as she solemnly recounted the dream  filled with witches and monsters, all the while playing with the bubbles in the bathtub.

  “Honey, it’s okay to have bad dreams sometimes,” I encouraged as I scrubbed the soap into her scalp.  Even though they are unpleasant, they are not real and we always wake up.” 

She closed her eyes as the warm water rinsed her hair.  Her eyes popped open and matter of factly she pointed out:  “Mommy—that dream catcher you gave me doesn’t work!”

  The fascinating part of this story was I’d given her the dream catcher nearly a year earlier, and we’d had only one conversation where I explained its purpose. Native American legend has it that good dreams slip through the web of a dream catcher during the night, and bad dreams become caught in the web and are perished by morning light.   It hung on her bed as a permanent fixture…and I’d still completely forgotten about it and assumed Callie had too.

  I was amazed by the memory of my 3 year-old at the time…and somewhat sad too.  I’d given her something she’d truly counted on and it had let her down.  I now think twice now before making promises of anything that has to do with folklore...or anything else for that matter that I'm not 100% confident in!  ~Trina