Scary Dreams

What qualifies as a "scary dream" is so different when you are 3 versus when you are 6. My girls taught me this over the last two nights. Apparently 1 a.m. is THE hour for bad dreams around here.

Adrienne's blood-curdling scream woke me at 1:15 yesterday. She quickly made it down the stairs and met me in the living room, still screaming, sobbing, and shaking uncontrollably. It seems we had a monster on our hands. And there was no way she was going back upstairs. I did my best to console her, remind her that it was a dream, monsters aren't real, blah, blah. "But I SAW him!!!" After about 10 minutes of this, I finally convinced her to come back upstairs with me. I had turned on her lights and cleared off her bed, and I proudly displayed my findings, "See, there's no monster." She got quiet and a in a sweet little voice said, "Oh! I was right." Say what?? Weren't you just the kid proclaiming there was a monster? Now you were 'right' that there wasn't one? This is what emotional trauma will do to you, people. I wish the fun times ended there, but they did not. While I convinced her to get back in her bed, she wanted me there. So I did what I usually do with her--told her I'd sit outside her door until she fell back asleep. Why not just take her to my bed so we can all go back to sleep you, ask? I have my reasons. We decided long ago that the girls are not invited in our bed to sleep. I am not talking about early morning snuggles (there is plenty of that), but nobody wins when the kids sleep in the bed (especially not this queen sized bed that Matt sleeps in the middle of....silly man refuses to get a king because I'd be "too far away" from him. I'm sending my message through the pillow barrier these days. I digress). I'm willing to sacrifice a bit more sleep to help the girls learn to face their nighttime fears and get back to sleep in the most restful spot--their own bed. Normally this works for Adrienne. But, not this time. This monster was so scary to her that she kept coming out to check if I was still there. Eventually I told her I was going to go lay out in the reading chair (about 5 steps from her room). She followed. We engaged in a dance of "go back to bed, I'm still here" for another 30  minutes before my resolved softened and we both just fell asleep in that chair. 90 minute bad dream management, followed by 3 hrs asleep semi-upright in a chair. Some might call this a compromise.

Anyway, the best part of Adrienne's bad dreams is how much detail she can give the next day when her head is clear and the fear has passed. She told Matt all about it when he got home last night.

Matt: "So you had a monster in your room?"

A: "Yes! He was so scay-wee. But. He didn't have shahp (sharp) teef'."

M: "Oh that's good. Was he big?"

A: "He was dis big." (holding up her hands to make the width of  about 6 inches) "And he was wayn-bow (rainbow) and he cwimbed up into my be-ed. And him had a slide"(motioning behind her)

M: "You mean he had a tail?"

A: "No, him had a sli-ide"

Jillian then inserted herself into the convo--"Oh, Adrienne, you mean like that guy in Monster's Inc? Dad, his tail is big and looks like a slide. You know, he looks like a slug. That's what it is". (big sister to the rescue)

And Jillian woke me at 1:04 this morning to tell me she had a scary dream. She and I have a different bad dream management routine. We go to the kitchen, get a drink of water, and head back upstairs. I tuck her in, assure her all is well, and pray with her. I asked her what this dream was about and she refused to talk about it. "Mom, it's so bad I don't want to say it." I respected her wishes and didn't push. She went back to sleep without struggle and then climbed in bed with me about 6:45 this morning when she woke.

M: "So what was your bad dream about last night? Do you want to talk about it now?"

J: "Well, we were on our way home from school and you got really mad at us. You left the car without us, and you didn't love us anymore. And I didn't like that at all"

Ouch. I'd take a monster dream any day over maternal abandonment. Sweet baby, you are growing up, and while you will have plenty of scary dreams about stuff that could possibly happen, this dream will never come true. Morning snuggles were extra sweet today.