Friday, September 16, 2011

Relieved to Wake Up

In the last week, I've had two distinct dreams about my children. Let me begin by saying I do NOT have the gift of prophetic dreams, if that were the case the world would have been overrun by technologically-advanced aliens long ago, or I would have come in "fourth" on American Idol. ("Fourth" seems to be the common denominator on that sort of dream....hmmmm.....)

That being said, these dreams did kind of disturb me.

The first one was regarding Mikayla. For whatever reason, I let her go to the mall with some unknown "friend" and they did a makeover on her - chopping off her golden locks and covering them with jet black, piercing her, and giving her a look that epitomized rebellious "teen". When I saw her I was irate and crushed, and thought (if not said aloud in the dream), this is the moment when "I lost her" - she became someone different. If only I'd been more careful.

I told the dream to Mikayla and she scowled at me about the absurdity of ever changing her appearance, but did kind of get distracted with the idea of "going to the mall".... =)

The second dream was about Brayden. It was much more obscure, but for whatever reason, he had had a series of conversations through social media that led to a horrible conclusion of him getting caught up in the wrong crowd and, following the same theme, becoming "lost to us". In this dream I found myself thinking, "I blew it", I was too self-centered on my own activities to keep careful track of his and if only that hadn't been the case, this never would have happened.

In the light of day, these are not pressing concerns in my mind. I know the triggers for these two dreams, and while they are "little" obstacles for us to sort through (i.e. - interest from the opposite sex for both kids...(with no feelings reciprocated, fyi) and conversations with friends about social media) they are not issues I grapple with worry over. It IS a hard balance to determine if you are giving too much space and too little grace or vice versa at this age - but, we're still a pretty united front as a family as evidenced by this conversation with Brayden about the dream last night.

Me: Description of both dreams to the kids as we were sharing a special "cozy moment" last night.

Brayden: After gasping at the description of what he was like in my dream, Brayden said, "Oh Mom, that's like a parent's worst nightmare!"

Somehow, even in his realization and thoughtfulness over what that would be like for us, it proved that, at least for now, these nightmares are just that - and not even approaching reality.

2 comments:

sara said...

I don't know any parent of tweens that doesn't struggle with that balance. But I can say that I have never met a parent that said they were sorry they were vigilant at being protective of their kids innocence at that age...however, I have certainly heard many lament that they weren't.

I have even had my daughter come back and thank me for the rules we had as a family...that she hated at the time!

There is balance and it is found through the filter of Christ!!

Tiffany said...

I LOVE Sara's response and couldn't agree with her more!

Some aquaintances have told me in the last several weeks that J.B. {now 10 and in the 5th grade} will begin to change behavior b/c of puberty, hormones, etc. They also explained some things that they have been going through! I refuse to believe that my children will be like "other" children. I refuse to believe that rebellion is a part of the teenage years...NOT SO!

{Boy, I'm taking this too far, right?;)}

Anywhooo....you keep up the good work! You're doing a GREAT job!:)