In which a new mom rambles about a legacy of improvised stories…
Tonight I told my son about the fairies who bring him dreams.
It’s the second night I am trying to have him sleep in his crib, in his own bedroom. Our house is small, and he’s not that far away now, but it’s still an adjustment having to get up and walk to soothe him and feed him in the middle of the night. I suspect he may be going through a growth spurt as well, so needless to say, he has been extra fussy and fighting sleep extra hard the last few days. Tonight was no different. Well, tonight was an impressive fight. He didn’t fuss much, he just wouldn’t close his eyes.
So I told him a story, since I had gone through my collection of memorized lullabies twice and I, too, was growing tired. I needed him to sleep so I could go pump and then go to sleep myself. I don’t get much sleep with a three-month-old.
In my desperation, to keep him soothed and to keep myself going, I told him about the fairies that bring him dreams.
These dreams have a purpose, see. They contain a code, some kind of riddle that he must solve to save the fairy kingdom. He is the only one who can do it, and so he must sleep so the fairies can bring him these dreams and save their kingdom, their princess, from the curse that has put her to sleep.
The story grew from there, into a fight against the terrifying mushroom king, and how Fletcher must find where the Fairy Salt has been hidden so he can defeat the mushroom king. The mushroom king is terrifying, so I understood why Fletch so desperately wanted to stay awake, but it is important to face the scary dreams so we can grow in strength, mentally and physically.
Finally, he fell asleep, and I sat down to write the story while I pumped and pondered the sources my mind pulled from to give him this.
I have always thrived on stories, see. My mother often tells the story of how when I would wake up as a baby, alone in my crib, I would keep myself busy by telling stories to my stuffed animals. Our family is full of stories, true stories and fairy stories, Christmas stories, and dragon stories. My grandmother created many of these stories for us, namely the stories of the watcher elves. Similar to the elf on the shelf, yes, but without the doll. It was purely our imaginations.
The elves would watch the children in their assigned families and report back to St. Nicholas whether they had been good children and could receive their presents. Grandma’s stories went far beyond watching children, though, expanding to include friendships with family pets, living in gingerbread houses, and the Nutcracker Wars against the evil spirit Xmas who wanted to destroy Christmas. I always wanted to continue the magic of those stories with my own children.
The elf who watched over my mother and her siblings was Enon. The elf who watched over me was Diggums. Since becoming a mother, I have corresponded with the watcher elves, and I believe my children’s elf will be Mikkel. Thus the stories will continue through the generations.
That is not the only inspiration for my fairy story tonight, though. You will recall the mention of fairy salt in the story. That derives from a story we would tell at fairy tea parties when I worked at my mother’s doll store in high school, about a girl who helped the fairies save their princess by killing evil mushrooms with table salt. The fairies always kept their own stash of salt after the incident, and over time their salt began to sparkle. My family has had fairy salt on hand since we discovered the tale in an old storybook while planning the tea parties.
Those and I’m sure countless other tales culminated into the roughly improvised adventure I went on tonight while trying to put my baby boy to sleep. Perhaps by the time he is old enough to understand, respond, and ask questions, I’ll be better at making up the details rather than a vague concept of a story.
Perhaps sharing these vague little stories with you will help me grow as a storyteller. Wouldn’t that be nice?
Happy reading, my friends. May the fairies bring you sweet dreams, may happiness abound in your days, and may you always have a story to tell your little ones, whether you wrote it yourself or you read it to them from a storybook.
Children need stories. You need stories too.
One response to “Fairies Who Bring Dreams – Bedtime Stories For My Baby Boy”
This makes me so happy 🥰