Fear

The walkway to and from the Grandparents' front door.

Fear has appeared in the mind of my sweet little boy. It started at home. He would wake in the middle of the night...around 1 or 2 am and I would go in his room and mostly he would just say, through tears, "Mama, hug!" and I would give him a hug and then he was able to go right back to sleep. Some nights he would need more comforting. I would say, did you have a bad dream? and he would respond with a yes. I then would simply say something like, "Mama's here. It was just a dream. Would you like a hug?" He always will take a hug. The last several nights he has said right as I am tucking him in to bed, "Monsters in here?" or sometimes, "Bugs in here?" I always say no and that monsters are just pretend. For the bugs we move all of his lovies out of the way and look for bugs. We never find any. Then we put the lovies back - that puts his mind at ease.

 One day we were in my bedroom and he said about our closet, "Monsters in there?" and I explained again that monsters are make believe, pretend, not real. I also said that he may imagine them or dream about them...and if he dreams about them and they are scary to say, "Boo!" and they will run away. That made him smile.

Sliding down the steps at Gramps and Grammy's house. (Stan B sometimes calls Grandpa and Grandma, Gramps and Grammy (or maybe it is Granny.))

Downstairs is where we sleep when we are at Gramps and Grammy's house. There is a door down there with a sculpture/relief of Bacchus's face on it. His mouth is open and he's got grapes in his hair. I wouldn't say he is scary looking, just unusual. Stanley would go down there and play and then would come upstairs and say, "Man down there?" It took me a couple of times before I understood what he was talking about (or what I assume he was talking about.) His inquiry after this man started after Mike was holding Stan B and looking at Bacchus and said something innocent like, "Aaaah scary man!" and that sunk into Stan B's head. Sponge, I tell ya. Our last night at their house he finished dinner early and went downstairs to throw the ball in the hall and after a couple of minutes he came upstairs and just clung to me asking about the man downstairs (I got a little creeped out but kept my cool.) I asked him if he was talking about Bacchus, the man on the door. He said yes...and he said, "I'm afraid." I told him that Bacchus was a good guy and liked to drink wine. :) I told him that it is OK to feel afraid but that when I was done eating dinner that I would go downstairs with him to look at Bacchus more closely and even touch his face in order to conquer his fear.

His "Heeeere's Johnny!" impersonation.

 After dinner we went downstairs and we went right up to Bacchus. I pointed out his smiling eyes, his big nose and nostrils and his open and laughing mouth. I pointed out the yummy grapes entwined in his hair. I even tried taking it off the door to show him that it was a simple hanging but couldn't manage doing so. Stan B smiled and touched the grapes. I think we conquered it. We'll see how things go on our next visit!

My two sleeping bears.

Stan B will wake up around 5 in the morning still. I will then bring him to our bed and if we are lucky he'll sleep 3 hours more. If we had a king size bed I'd be tempted to co-sleep with him all the time. But a queen has either Mike or I practically falling off of the bed when Stan B joins us.

Anyways, I hope that we can always talk openly about his fears and always figure out how to conquer them.