When Kids Are Creepy at Night

At 11:30pm I was working later than I should have when my attention was broken by the sound of a whimper coming from upstairs. The refrigerator’s hum and buzzing from the bugs of summer outside, make it hard to pinpoint where the whimper is coming from. I hear it again. It’s my son. This isn’t uncommon for him; I should have recognized the sound immediately. Hustling up the steps I open is the door to find him standing in the middle of his bedroom with a red shark toy pressed up against his face. He’s not fully awake, though he is definitely not in a peaceful slumber either.

This eerie sight has happened enough times that I no longer get that creepy “I see dead people” feeling. I don’t know one person with children that have not had the pants scared off of them at least once when a child does something creepy at night.

The first time this happened I think I wet myself – just a little. I had sprinted down the hall to his bedroom after hearing him cry out for me in a gut-wrenching shriek, “Mom?!”. Reaching for the door I swung it open and there he was, right in front of me talking to himself. His eyes were half closed and he was swaying and trotting in place. I asked him if he had to use the bathroom, no answer. I asked him if he had a bad dream, still no answer. Terrified to look around the room in fear of seeing or hearing something supernatural, I do the only thing a loving and caring mother can do. I placed my hands on his shoulders and gently moved him back to his bed.

Then I leave the room like a bolt of lightning, doing a running leap from five feet away, into my own bed so the monsters underneath don’t grab my feet. I have no idea who he gets his overactive imagination from.

Do you remember the first movie you watched that scared you senseless? If it was Poltergeist, then you and I have something in common. Thanks for letting me watch that one DAD! We watched it during daylight hours, I thought I would be fine. Wrong! So very wrong. When that clown pulled the kid under the bed, forget it. I didn’t sleep for weeks. Hell, I may not sleep tonight just from looking for a meme to put here for you all. Misery loves company. I’m absolutely sure there is a clown under your bed right now.

Fellow caregivers and parents, you are not alone. Kids do creepy things at night and even though we are rationalizing adults with years under our belt that provide us with the ability to decipher an overactive imagination – we still scare ourselves. Maybe I frighten easily. At this point, I plan to hide this from my kids for as long as possible. Letting them think I could possibly defend them from a monster is a role I bear with honor.

Photo Credit Giphy and Pixabay