It's been a restless few weeks for Opeie recently sleep wise. We're not really sure why but he's been waking up on and off and occasionally has been a little upset. It may just be a growth spurt but he's never been the best sleeper and would keep us up sporadically through the night for the first 4 years, which at times was exhausting. A few nights back we heard him wake up and I went upstairs to make sure he was ok. He was still semi-asleep and explained that he had had a bad dream.
When asked what the dream was about (because it's always important to ask in case it is something serious) he explained that the dream was about a small fish who was being chased by an angry whale and couldn't get away. Although he was clearly quite upset about the poor little fish he said it was ok because a swordfish had come along and saved the little fish from the big bad whale. Despite the tears and restless sleep I've got to say, the whole thing was pretty adorable.
I'm not really sure where it all started but swordfish keep popping up a lot recently when Opeie is talking. As far as I can remember we've not been anywhere where he may have seen a swordfish, read any books including a swordfish or even spotted one in any documentary we may have been watching recently, but it is clear that this new love of the hero swordfish is here to stay. So when Opeie decided he wanted a craft session a few days ago we came up with a plan to recreate his dream.
The idea was to make something cute that could be a decoration for the house. Opeie and I had a long discussion about the dream and he explained what the fish looked like before drawing them for me. We cut the front and sides out of a box and covered in duck tape that we had left over from our Custom scooter. Opeie did a great job of mixing some lovely colours and painted the inside of his fish tank and the three fish. We had a big bucket of shells and rocks in the back garden from various visits to the beach which were waiting to be used for something fun, so we made the most of them.
After Opeie had painted his dream fish and given them button and googly eyes, we suspended his creations with the only string we could find (yo-yo strings) and our fish tank was complete. Our craft session gave us a great chance to talk about dreams and why we think we have them. We talked colour mixing and textures, but most importantly to him, he got to use a glue gun. A pretty perfect little craft session and a splash more colour added to the house.
