Every night, we draw the kids a "goodnight signal." Both the boys and the girls have one of those boards that you can draw on and it glows in the dark. So, we tuck the kids in and draw them a picture. John usually draws for the boys and I usually draw for the girls. I draw all kinds of fancy stuff from kids swinging to butterflies and flower bouquets and rainbows, cats, you name it, I've probably drawn it. The girls call out what it is and then snuggle in to go to sleep. But the other night, I just wrote words. I wrote:
You are strong.
You are brave.
You are important.
And do you know, it is the ONLY TIME, in all of the years that we've been doing this that the girls called their dad back in--with excitement in their voices and said, "DADDY! DADDY!!! You GOTTA come see what Mommy wrote!"
I've told them these things many times throughout their lives. They know I feel this way about them. But there was something so powerful about seeing it written down. It struck them in a way that it hadn't before. I never saw that coming.
