Bedtime Stories

T loves to hear stories of me when I was little. So I tell  him about the time I learned how to ride a bike, or the time I was sick on the first day of first grade -- but went anyway, or the time there was no girl's track team so I started one, or the time we were all on a swing set and the whole thing toppled over with all four of us girls in the glider chair, or the time my sister jumped off the piano onto my wooden doll -- breaking it into a gazillion pieces.

Lately he's wanted to then tell me stories from when he was little -- which is a bit of a "whew" since I'm running out of my own "when I was little" stories.

What he's telling me is his life's narrative. This is an amazing step in his journey. One attachment technique is to give your child a narrative, with things such as a lifebook, a family candle lighting ceremony, or doing what families do naturally -- reliving, through stories, your time together. The telling of these stories strengthens the attachment -- the "I belong here-ness" of how he feels about his place in the family.

The first story T told me was this:

"When I was little, I was in the Big House, and my parents came, and I held up my arms to Daddy, and he picked me up, and then we went to the place where you were staying, and I slept in the little bed, and then there was a thunderstorm, and I was scared and crying, and you picked me up and put me in bed between you and Daddy, and I felt safe."

"I felt safe." 

We adoptive parents work hard and long at getting our children to a place where they feel safe. Nothing about their lives has been safe. Their lives have been trauma and upheaval and fear and loss that no child should ever have to endure. 

Even if they do feel safe, they are loathe to admit to it, because that would be admitting to needing us, and that would mean they still feel vulnerable, and vulnerable means "I might not survive." 

So to hear those three words, "I felt safe," made me want to simultaneously break out into the Hallelujah Chorus and do a Riverdance jig. I rubbed his back and said, "I ran to you as fast as I could because I heard you crying and I knew you were scared. I'm glad you felt safe. You are safe here with Mommy."

And then we kissed good night and he fell asleep. 

Hallelujah! Tipitty, tippity, tippity!