Huh?.....Wha..?

The middle-of-the-night incoherencies uttered by the adults in our household are attributed in large part, these days, to our older child, or, as James and I have begun referring to him at 12, 3, 5 a.m.: "YOUR son". We have entered into a realm of parenthood that I had blissfully forgotten from my own childhood: the "scared of the dark" phase. This started several weeks ago, maybe as far back as a month or two, but last week things started to go downhill. We were able to appease him in the beginning with the door left slightly ajar. When this wasn't good enough we moved to keeping the hall light on, and this worked for a couple of weeks. Jeran's fear has progressed to the point where night lights are a no-go, and he's not satisfied with anything less than his bedroom lamp being fully on. The poor child has been hysterical without it. Even at this he was starting to wake several times a night seeking comfort. What's a parent to do? I vascillate between the compassionate mom I should be, acknowledging that this is a real fear (apparently of a doggie under Ben's crib - a little creepy. He insists it's there), and the tired, impatient part of me wants to continue pointing out that there's nothing to be afraid of, and he just needs to GO...TO...SLEEP! At this point I'm on the lookout for an extremely low-wattage bulb and an ounce of perseverance to get us through this stage. In the meantime we are open to any and all advice and are happy to announce that at least we have gotten through the last 2 nights with a full amount of sleep (well, except for that crazy Ben waking up to eat at 4...but I'll take it as opposed to the alternative!).



A few pictures: the first is of James and Jeran after a particularly bad "scared" evening. I came
home late last week Friday night to find them on the couch like this. Pretty sweet, huh? The second is just plain for fun. Baby Ben after bath time.








Grrrr...I'm a lion!