Hanging out with my kiddos. Last night we tried an experiment – leaving them home alone for an hour after dark. After dark being the key part here, at 11 and (almost) 9, they have stayed home for an hour or two before while I have run errands or whatever. But I vaguely remember the first time I was in the house alone after dark, and being pretty freaked out at how different everything seemed.
But I had to go to a 7pm meeting, and Charles hadn’t come home from work yet, so we talked about it, and the kids felt like they could handle it. I told them not to worry about putting themselves to bed, just get ready for bed and their dad could put them to bed when he got home. It turned out Charles was later than he thought he’d be, and he found them snuggled up and reading together at 8:45 in Dillon’s bed. Apparently they had discussed putting themselves to bed at 8, but Rose said, “When you weren’t home I got creeped out, and it was like there were ghosts and zombies in my room, so I wanted to be by Dillon.”
I said, “That’s fine, and I understand being creeped out, but you know ghosts and zombies aren’t real, right? They are just made up.”
Dillon interjects, “But Mom, that is the lizard brain. And it is really hard to fight those feelings. Like, the light in my closet (where we have the wireless router and server for the house) is really disconcerting, even though I know what it is.”
That kid really cracks me up sometimes!