A Bad Place For Charlotte's Web

Hi.  Phew!  Does anyone else feel like they are sinking in the quicksand of Christmas?  I don't know if it's the fact that we only have three weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas or that I am just busy ALL THE TIME ANYWAY!  But seriously.  These last few weeks have been killing me.  I will be happy when Christmas is here and I can relax for minute and have leftovers, while playing with my new toys for few days.  Because I've been so busy, I haven't had time to sit down and write, but I managed to find 20 free minutes today.  Even though my body really wanted me to take a nap, I denied it just so I could entertain you all with a new story.  Aren't I so nice?  Let's call it my Christmas present to you!  Because I really can't do any more shopping or bake any more cookies.  I might hurt someone. Plus this is a quick one, so I can maybe write this and STILL get a 10 minute nap in.  If there are spelling mistakes in here, forgive me.  My body took over and put me to sleep.  

A couple of weeks ago, the girls went back to my room to take a shower after dinner, as they do most nights.  Andy was home that day and he went to monitor them, while I cleaned up the kitchen.  I was busy trying to tame the kitchen mess, when I heard Georgia start to cry.  I ignored it partially because this was not an unusual occurrence.  Chances were that one of her sisters did something that upset her, and her cries are mostly fake.  I also ignored it because Andy was there and I decided let him deal with it for once.  Then I heard her running down the hall and I realized her crying wasn't the typical "waaa! she hit me!" kind of crying.  This was a panicked, sobbing, couldn't catch her breath cry.  That's when I intervened.

"Georgia what's wrong?"  I asked.

Between her sobs she tried as best she could to tell me.  "Sssttthhhpppiiidddeeerrr!"

"What?" I asked, not sure what she was telling me.

"Sthpider (sob) in (sob) da toilet (sob sob sob)!!" She said.

I walked back to our bedroom where Andy was standing at our toilet trying to flush down a Daddy Long Leg spider.  The floor in front of the toilet was wet with urine.  

After calming Georgia down and piecing it together with the others what I found out was this.  Georgia got on the toilet in our bathroom to pee before taking a shower.  She looked down in the bowl and there was a Daddy Long Leg trying to make his way out of the bowl.  So, mid-pee, she hopped off crying and ran down the hall naked.   Now, I'm personally not afraid of spiders, but even I would have freaked the hell out had I seen that while trying to go.  Not to mention that at five years old, that Daddy Long Leg probably looked gigantic to her.  

If felt so bad for her and consoled her until she calmed down.  Then she her sisters took a shower. Problem solved!  Right?  Issue over! Right?  Now you all now better than that!

For five days afterward the child held her pee.  I would see her dancing around and when I asked her if she had to go she would deny it.  Eventually she would have to give in, but before she would go in ANY toilet, I had to thoroughly check for spiders.  Then I had to stand there until she was done.  As the weeks have gone on she's gotten better about going, but she is still making me check the toilet and I can't go very far until she is finished going.  You know, because I have nothing else going right now but to wait in the bathroom while my child poops.  It's more fun than you know.

She still refuses to go in the toilet in our bathroom though.  No matter how much checking I do in that one, she doesn't trust it.  I really can't say I blame her.  I got up in the middle of the night to pee a few nights ago, and her incident popped in my head.  I didn't want to turn on the light so I just peed like I do in a public toilet, hovering above the seat.  I couldn't be positive that Daddy Long Leg hadn't creeped from back out of the bowl and I wasn't looking to find out.  Guess we will all be checking the toilet for a while.  

I Hope His Name Is Casper

Something weird happened in our house one night last week, when I was trying to get the girls ready for bed.  We were in the middle of our usual 7:15ish trying to get them to clean their rooms fight.  I was in the kitchen cleaning up after their dinner, and the little girls were in their room not cleaning up.  It was that time of day when the light in the house starts getting dark.  Not completely nighttime dark, but that kind of eerie, sort of half light half dark.  It was especially that way in the hallway.  The light is what I'm attributing to what happened next.  


Sonya walked into the kitchen visibly shaken and said to me,


"Mommy, I just saw footsteps go down the hallway and into the living room, but there is nobody in there."


I immediately stopped what I was doing, looked at her and said,


"What?  Say that again."


"I saw footsteps walk down the hallway, into the living room, but there's nobody in there," she told me again.


I walked into the living room and looked around, knowing there would be no person there.  However, I was freaked out at what I might find.  I've mentioned on this blog before, that I tend to be a bit afraid of certain things.  Ghosts are one  of them.  Yes, I know, I know they're not real, but who can really tell me that with complete certainty?  The truth is, we don't really know for sure.  I know my fear stems from the fact that the first scary movie I ever watched was when I was 8 years old.  My babysitter was so awesome that she let me stay up late to watch Poltergeist with her because my parents had HBO, and probably because she was afraid to watch it alone.  I fell asleep on the couch while watching it and woke up in my pitch black bedroom in the middle of the night, completely petrified.  After that I was certain it was only a matter of time before my closet swallowed me, and I was getting instructions to go toward the light.  I did resemble the little girl in the movie, which scared me even more.  As a result, I've always been fascinated/afraid of any kind of ghost stories; movies, TV shows, books or stories that friends tell.  There is a part of me that would like to have an experience and see one, but then there is the other side of me that is fairly certain I would shit my pants if I ever did come in contact with any kind of supernatural being.  That would just be uncomfortable for everyone involved.  


As for Sonya, she just thought there was someone in the house.  I don't think she's yet thought about ghosts being a possibility.  Once I assured her that nobody else was in the house, she went back to her business and they continued to get ready for bed.  I, however, was silently in freak out mode.  I pushed it to the back of my head until after I got the little girls to bed.  Then I sat down with Sonya, to get more information on her sighting.  


"Okay, tell me again exactly what you saw."


"Well!" She began.  "I was kinda in the girls' room and kind of in the hallway and all of a sudden I saw these footsteps walking down the hall."


"What do you mean footsteps?" I asked.


"Shoes," she told me.


"Just shoes... walking?" I asked.


"Yeah."


"How big were they?"


She held out her hands to show me about an adult sized foot.


"Men's or women's?"


"Men's."


"What color were they?"


"Black.  They were like the shoes Daddy wears when he gets dressed up in his suit," she said.


"Okay. And it was just shoes?  There weren't legs or pants or a person?"


"Nope, just shoes," she informed me.  


"So what happened?  They walked by you?"


"Yeah.  They walked by me down the hall and I stepped backward into Lana and Georgia's room and they walked into the living room, but then nothing was there."


OMGOMGOMGOMFG!!!!


"Huh.  Well, it was probably just your imagination playing tricks on you," I said, being as calm as ever.  I should get an Academy Award for how well I played calm.


"Yeah, that's what I thought, because I have a good imagination." She told me.  "There was one time I had a dream that you gave me THREE cookies for dessert, but then I woke up and realized that it was just my imagination."


Okay, so seeing shoes walking down our hallway and dreaming about an over abundance of desserts are not exactly the same thing.  Not to mention that every show or movie I've seen, or book I've read on the subject of ghosts suggest that kids and animals can see them because they are more open.  I know it's not something she made up either, because she is not the kind of kid to do that kind of thing.  Plus I saw the look on her face when she walked into the kitchen to tell me about it.  So either A-she did see a ghost- to which Andy made fun of me to no end when I suggested this, B-she caught a glimpse of the people living in this house in the parallel Universe (I'm a huge Fringe fan) or C-it was indeed her imagination.  For now, I'm going with option C, because my husband isn't to keen sleeping with all the lights on.  However, don't worry, if it is anything more you will get the whole story if we have to hire a little woman to cleanse our house and tell one of the kids to "go into the light". 

Preparing To Be Scared

Yesterday I had to take all three girls to the dermatologist for various different reasons.  Nothing serious, but they just all had some kind of skin rash here or itchy scalp there.  Our pediatrician had given me a referral to a dermatologist to get a more specified opinion on what was going on with their skin. 


When we got to the office,  I was given paperwork to fill out on ALL THREE girls.  We were new to this particular office so they needed all the information you usually fill out when you go to a doctor for the first time.  Times three.  Yeah, that took a while.  


The girls were actually behaving fairly well, thankfully. Then I noticed why. I looked up to see a TV mounted on the wall and playing on it was Pirates of the Caribbean.  Don't ask me which one, because I think I've only seen the first two, and those only once.  Not to mention the part of the movie they were watching there was nothing but fighting going on.  Wait-isn't that pretty much the whole movie?  Whatever. 


 The girls had their eyes glued to the screen.  Having watched not much more than Mickey Mouse and Sesame Street at this point in their lives, they were intrigued.  They have seen Star Wars, but even that is not as shoot 'em up as Pirates.  I looked over at Georgia and she was obviously a little uncomfortable.  I asked if she was scared and she told me yes.  I asked Lana if she was scared and she said she was fine.  I reminded them all that this was pretend and these were just actors telling a story.  Nobody was really getting shot or dying.  Then I looked at Sonya who was going back and forth between trying to concentrate on her coloring and being captured by what was going on in the movie.  She is the one who was afraid of watching movies for so long.  She is the one who will probably never watch a scary movie in her life, at least not on purpose.  So I said to her,


"Sonya, you okay?  Are you scared?"


She looked over at me and said, "No, I'm fine."


 Then after a pause she said very matter of fact, "I'll just have nightmares tonight."


Oh, well as long as you're not scared NOW.  

The Happiest (and Sometimes Scariest) Place on Earth

This past Thursday was our annual family trip to Disneyland.  This year I had only one kid in diapers!  Even that isn't too bad, because most of the time she informs me when she has to poop and we make it to a bathroom on time.  Anyway, I love our trip to Disney every year.  It's a fun day with the whole family and our friend Melinda who gets us in for free!  Because really, who the hell can afford $76 a ticket these days? Yes we use Melinda to get us in for free, but we also love her company.  Plus in all fairness she uses us to get out of work for a day and go to Disney instead.  It's not a bad trade off.  (Thanks again Melinda!)  It's also a day that forces me not to cook, clean and be distracted by other duties.  A day to  hang out and have fun with my kids and husband.  That's just what we did.  


I think we rode more rides than we have in the past, which I was excited about, because I love rides.   We did the usual ones like Dumbo, the carousel and  Teacups.  Well, Sonya and I didn't ride the Teacups but everyone else did.  She and I were more keen on keeping our breakfast in our stomachs for the time being.  Riding the Teacups would have made that impossible for us.  Then we tried some new ones.  Andy and Melinda took Sonya and Lana on the little roller coaster in Toon Town.  Unfortunately, Georgia wasn't quite tall enough and she was NOT happy about it.  She cried for about five minutes after they left.  I distracted her by taking her into Goofy's house and Donald's boat. Every once in a while she would realize we were alone and the reason for that was because she couldn't ride the roller coaster, so she would get upset all over again.  Poor thing.  Hopefully next year she'll make the cut.  


We also did new rides like, Autotopia. That's the one where you drive the cars around the track.  Not sure why we never did that one before.  I guess we just never got over there in the past.  We only saw it this time, because we decided to go on the Finding Nemo ride.  This ride opened over three years ago, but we've never gone on, because the line has always been too long.  Even on days when the park was not crowded, like it is most of the time when we go after Thanksgiving, it was at least a 45 minute wait.  With three kids 45 minutes might as well be three hours.  Our wait time limit is usually 20 minutes tops.  Fortunately, that was the exact wait for Nemo on this day.  


We got in line not really sure what to expect of this ride.  Actually, I was pretty certain it was tame.  You get in a big submarine and ride around a track in the water.  The old ride there was 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, which I remember being kind of scary, but this was Nemo!  A story about a cute little lost fish who's dad comes to look for him.  How scary could it be, right?  I mean it was probably just like being in a floating aquarium. 


 I guess I haven't seen Finding Nemo in a few years.


It started out harmless enough.  Except there was the guy behind us who freaked out when they closed the top of the submarine. He decided he had to get out RIGHT THEN, leaving his five year old son in the care of a stranger for the ride.  I'm assuming he was claustrophobic.  Why even get in line, I'm not sure, perhaps he thought he could handle it.  Guess not.  We were all fine.  So far.  It started off like I thought the whole thing was going to be.  We were just looking through the portholes into what looked like the ocean, but with fake fish and fake coral.  The girls were enjoying it, until we "dove deeper" and ended up in darkness.  Then it also got extremely loud, which I guess was good, because then nobody could hear the screaming and crying of my two youngest girls.  They were both in hysterics, Georgia more than Lana. They both kept saying "Mommy!!  I wanna go hoooommmme!"  Oh boy.  


It wouldn't have been that bad if we were on Snow White or Peter Pan and they would have gotten scared.  Those rides are over in, what, 2 minutes?  Not Nemo.  No, Nemo was more like Pirates of the Caribbean length.  Perhaps a little less, but I'm guessing we were in that sub for at least seven minutes with my screaming children, which felt more like an hour.  


When we finally got back to the start, the girls had calmed down some, but GG was still talking about going home.  She was much happier when we went to the Autotopia and let her drive Andy around the track for five minutes instead.  


The rest of the day went more smoothly.  There weren't  even any major kid breakdowns to speak of.  We managed to convince Sonya to go on Pirates of the Caribbean, which she liked.  I wasn't sure if that was ever going to happen.  Next year we'll attempt the Haunted Mansion with her.  Although the other two are sticking to Toon Town and Dumbo for a while.  Even now they Lana keeps saying,


"I do not wan to go on dat Submaween wide again!"


All in all it was a great day.  We had ice cream for dinner and stayed for Fireworks.  Then we changed all the girls into their PJs when we got to the car and they were asleep within five minutes of leaving.  


I guess next year there will be no "Submaween wide" for the Dadekains.  They're just going to have to find Nemo without us.  

Fright Night

I know I've mentioned on here a few times before about Sonya being a bit of a scared kid, mostly when it comes to movies. Truth be told this is an inherited trait, as I am a bit of a baby myself when it comes to watching scary movies or shows. Well, that's not entirely true. I actually LIKE to watch them to scare the crap out of myself. This always leads to me having nightmares for a couple nights. Although, I should point out that I won't watch ALL scary movies. I can no longer watch Zombie movies, because they really freak me out, for whatever reason. I've never been a fan of slasher/gory movies either, like Saw. I prefer a good ghost story or other supernatural type of tale. Poltergeist is probably my all time favorite, as far as scary movies go, and I love the TV show Supernatural. So the other night when I saw Andy had recorded Amityville Horror on our DVR, I was all for watching it. Even if it was the silly remake with Ryan Reynolds. (At least he's fun to look at.) However, it was what happened at the very end of the movie that frightened me the most.

The kids have had colds for a few days now and nobody has been sleeping great in our house. The night that we watched the movie, was probably the night Lana was feeling the worst. Thankfully, she didn't wake up at all during the movie, as I sat on the couch tense yelling at the stupid people in the movie to GET OUT OF THE FREAKING HOUSE, ALREADY! If you haven't seen it, I don't want to spoil for you entirely, but they do finally leave at the end. Okay, I spoiled it, sorry.

Anyway, after they make their escape, the camera goes back to a shot of the creepy house. It leads you back inside where the little ghost girl, with a bullet shot in her head, stands at the bottom of the staircase. She's about four years old and clutching her stuffed bear with a single tear on her face. I ask you is there anything creepier than little ghost kids or demonic kids, like in The Omen? For some reason when kids are evil, it's just extra creepy. I digress. So there the little ghost girl stands at the bottom of the stairs. Then, suddenly, she gets pulled through the floor by another ghost and credits roll. The moment right before the credits, right after the ghost girl disappears, we hear a loud THUD! from Sonya and Lana's room. I look at Andy he looks at me and we both freeze for a minute. Needless to say I was completely FREAKED OUT.

"What the HELL was that?" I asked.

"Don't know," Andy answered. "Sounds like someone fell out of bed."

Andy being the more rational and much less scared one in the family, immediately stood up and walked toward the direction of the noise, while I sat glued to the couch. Then Lana started to cry.

We open the door to find Lana lying on the ground whimpering. She had indeed fallen out of her little bed. Now, this act in itself isn't so weird, because kids fall out of their beds all the time. Sonya used to fall out of hers when she first started sleeping in it, even though there is a guard rail. Because they are all over the place when they sleep, they manage to work past the rail and fall out at the end of the bed. Here's the weird part, Lana has been sleeping in her bed since November and NOT ONCE has she fallen out. So why now, on a night we watch a SCARY MOVIE, does she fall out? And the timing! At the very end when the scary ghost girl gets pulled through the floor? Why? WHY? Well, I was of course convinced she was pushed by the ghost girl, but knowing that Andy would just roll his eyes at me, I kept this thought to myself.

We calmed her down and placed her back in her bed. Then for the rest of the night when I had to get up to check on her or one of the other girls, I was convinced I was going to be greeted by a ghost girl in the hallway. The only way to combat this... run into the hall to get the light to pop on. Ghosts don't like the light.

That little experience reminded me of how ridiculous I can be when I watch something scary. I have a bit of an overactive imagination I guess. So I suppose the next time Sonya freaks out about not wanting to watch The Little Mermaid because of the Sea Witch, I'll be more compassionate. After all, the Sea Witch to her is the creepy ghost girl to me. Crap, I think I may be scared of The Little Mermaid now.

Things That Go Bump In the Night

Yes, I've been out of touch for a bit now.  My computer was taken over by my father-in-law for the past week and I left the house ALONE every chance I got, so there wasn't much time to write.  I'm still here though!  I didn't get a chance to tell you all about Halloween, so I thought we'd start there.

I don't know if I've said it before, but Sonya is a the most scared, of all the scaredy-cat kids, in all the land.  This makes Halloween a very bitter sweet holiday for her.  She loves to get dressed up and get candy, but isn't too fond of all the creepy and scary decorations on people's houses.  We, in fact, have a decoration we get out every year she absolutely fears to death.  It's called Jabber Jaw.  It's a skeleton head that you talk to and it repeats what you say, while it's jaw moves, in a really creepy voice.  Every year when we get it out she wants us to put it as far away as possible.  This year before I got the decorations out she talked about Jabber Jaw and how she wasn't afraid of it.  She was going to talk to it and hold it.  She couldn't WAIT to get out Jabber Jaw!!   Then Jabber Jaw came out of the Halloween box and she froze like a deer in headlights and started to cry.  I'm not kidding.  Cried and begged me to put it away.  So once again Jabber Jaw got put up on a high shelf.  Although we did discovered, he serves a good purpose.  Anytime she started misbehaving we threatened to get Jabber Jaw.  NOT JABBER JAW!!!  Ahhh, antagonizing your children...sometimes it's so much fun to be a parent. 

 The biggest problem with her being so afraid of silly things, is that she's starting to influence Lana.  Who knows if Lana would have been as afraid of Jabber Jaw, if she was the firstborn.  She looks to Sonya to lead the way, so she was very afraid too.  Luckily, G is still too little to be led so she could have cared less about it.  

On Halloween night we went trick or treating with Sonya's friend Liza and her little sister.  (Sonya went as a witch, Lana as Minnie and Georgia as a duck and they were damn cute, I must say.)  Liza does not scare as easily, and was willing to ring any doorbell for candy no matter how dark or creepy the decorations looked.  She coaxed Sonya to go with her to most of the scary houses.  If not for her I think Sonya would have been eating the candy we handed out at home.  It didn't matter what kind of candy was promised at a house, if it looked scary she was out.  Fortunately, thanks to Liza, she managed to get a good haul.  NOT that we really NEEDED anymore junk in our cupboard, but still.  

After about 25 minutes we went home, because Liza and her family needed to leave, and Sonya and Lana were ready to be done with potential scariness.  After I put Georgia to bed, I convinced them to go back out to a couple more houses.  Andy and I took them, while my in-laws stayed and passed out candy.  We didn't end up going far because, once again, the houses that looked kind of scary, Sonya refused to go near. Now that Liza wasn't around to protect her, she REALLY wouldn't go.

We were almost back home when we stopped at one last, non-scary house.  The girls walked up to get their candy and I turned around to face two teenage boys in very creepy looking masks.  As soon as I saw them I knew the girls weren't going to like them.  I looked back to see how they were going to react.  They thanked the nice lady for their candy, then they both turned around and stared at the boys in front of them.  Their eyes got wide and they both looked nervous.  Then Lana, without taking her eyes off them said,

"yikes."

 Just like that.  Not loud or upset, just a very subdued, calm but scared "yikes".  Then she grabbed Andy and said, 

"Daddy pick up, peese."  

Andy and I laughed, and he picked her up.  I grabbed Sonya's hand to lead her away from the creepy looking masked boys.  We went back to our house where they were very content to pass out/eat lots of candy for the rest of the night.  Overall, they had fun despite being frightened, and we always have a great time watching them.

I'm sure as Sonya gets older she'll start to overcome some of her fears of Halloween decorations.  I can't say she doesn't come by it naturally.  I've always been a bit on the scared side myself.  I remember many a Halloween where I refused one particular house in the neighborhood.  They had black lights and spooky music coming from the front door.  That's all I needed to not go.  Even now I can't handle a lot of  scary movies, especially zombie ones.   I can't even imagine how tormented I would have been by MY father, if Jabber Jaw would have been in our family.  Maybe next year Sonya will successfully convince herself that she's not afraid of it.  Then she can take part in the fun of scaring her little sisters instead.