1 Mother 2 Another

Maddie has a vivid imagination. And I
don’t mean that in the “Oh, I just made up a whole
pretend kingdom replete with its own monetary system and
multi-tiered governing body” kind of way. No, I mean it in a
“Give me a thumbnail sketch of a natural disaster and I can
inflate it into a play-by-play in graphic, unending detail in my
head” kind of way. Mix that quirk of her personality with her
penchant for worry over things she cannot control, and you’ve
got a recipe for some long nights.

Maddie will go through spells of
nightmares for several days at a stretch; she’ll worry a
particular topic – say, fire, and how to save her silky from
it – to the bone, then fall asleep and worry/panic over it
some more in her dream time. She’s been having nightmares for
the past few days and is about at the end of her rope, afraid now
to even fall asleep for fear of having more bad dreams.


Two nights ago, it was a tornado whipping through our house;
apparently not a huge fear in itself, but whipped into a full-on
nightmare because, although we all got out ok, she was unable to
save her silky or her cat from the tornado. Then yesterday she
began reading a new children’s book: a part of the Magic
Treehouse series, this particular book focuses for some
inexplicable reason on the Great San Francisco Earthquake.
Seriously, how did that make it into her book bag?


So last night Maddie was unable to even fall asleep. She lay in her
bed, petrified but trying to be obedient and sleep by herself
(she’d ended up in our bed the past couple nights because of
the bad dreams). When I came in to check on her an hour later and
she was slick with fear-sweat, I told her to just come in with us
right away. I can’t bear to see my baby that freaked out.


As you can guess, this household is running a bit low on sleep and
a bit high on the cranky meter. I hope there’s some good
sleep on the near horizon. Prayers for good dreams and deep sleep
would be much appreciated.