Izzy had her first real nightmare last night. She has had "bad dreams" before, but usually she doesn't wake up and a little cuddling settles her right back down. Her nightmare must have happened around six am, because I was in the bathroom getting dressed when she came in wild-eyed and speaking gibberish. I don't know if it sounded like gibberish because I was barely functioning yet, or because she was truly speaking gibberish. I truly could not make out anything that she was saying; I only knew she was scared. I cuddled her and settled her down and she started asking about the man with the black hat with pink string (on the hat) and the pink lips who was in her room.
I told her Mommy wouldn't let anyone hurt her and it was just a yucky dream. That led her to ask if the angels made the man come (at night I tell her to listen to the angels and that the angels protect her from yucky dreams). I told her it was pretend, like when she pretends to be a dog, and she told me she wasn't being a dog. I told her that the bad man wasn't in her room, and she asked me who made him leave. Needless to say, explaining dreams to an almost three-year-old is a challenge.
At breakfast she told the boys about the dream (with the bad man with the black hat with the pink string on it and the pink lips) and they gave her all the reassurances that I did, but she was still a little uncertain. Then I told her that her brothers wouldn't let anything bad happen to her, and she said that Devie and Alex would stomp on the bad man (complete with a demonstration as she stomped her foot on the floor).
At nap time she didn't want to go to sleep "until Devie and Alex get home" so the bad man wouldn't get her. So she and I went around and locked all the doors to the house and checked all the bedrooms upstairs to make sure that she and I were the only ones here and no one could get it to get Izzy. It worked (well that plus her exhaustion from her early morning), and I love the fact that she wanted her big brothers here to protect her.
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3 years ago
2 comments:
Poor thing. I remember Hannah had one like that about alligators when she was around 4. It was horrible. Hopefully no more of those.
Loretta was having regular night terrors for awhile there. She would wake up and run to us, she couldn't form a sentence at all and she'd just stare at no one in the corner of the room saying something like "make him go away". It was terrifying for John and I b/c we felt like we were having too hard of a time waking her up and getting through to her. She hasn't had one in months...
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