Last Halloween, I scared my son. This year, he got me back. He got me back good.
We both did it unintentionally. He’s since recovered; I’m still watching my back.
To be fair, I have always scared easily. I’ll admit to preferring to sleep with a nightlight on in the bedroom, and I jump at every loud and unexpected sound. It’s truly embarrassing sometimes.
However, ever since becoming a parent, I am trying my darndest to show a little more bravery when things frighten me and hope that I don’t pass my irrational fears on to my child. This is a task that became near impossible a few weeks ago when my son said and did something that chilled me to the bone.
To set the stage, my family has recently moved into a new home. The house has a very cozy feeling, and with all the windows and bright space, it is difficult to feel anything but safe and comfortable within its walls. My son has even said how his new room isn’t scary (he’d been having nightmares before the move), and he has had no problem falling asleep in there each night. Whew!
The place is perfect for us, which is why what happened next came as a bit of a shock.
One afternoon, in the midst of unpacking, Little Buddy came running down the stairs after an hour or so of playing in his room. “Where did she go?” he asked.
I was confused. “Where did who go?”
“The lady–the lady in the house. Where is she?”
This went back and forth a little bit as my husband and I followed him up to his room, reassuring him that there was no lady in the house. He remained insistent. I remained as composed as I could. After a few more minutes of this, my son got a little frustrated with us, for not understanding him, and then ran off to play some more.
I slowly turned to look at my husband, who was also at a loss as to what our child was talking about. I also noted the slight grin that was spreading across his face as he noted the increasing worry on mine.
“Here we go,” he said with a laugh as I started scanning the rooms and looking for the undesirable answer that every horror movie would present in this situation—a ghost.
It’s not a leap, is it—to ponder the supernatural, when no one else is in the house and your child mentions another person (that no one else has seen or knows about) being there. It really freaked me out, especially since this was not the first time he has scared me like this.
I still recall the nervous laughter I let out, to try and soothe myself after my son pointed up at the corner of our ceiling and asked, “What are you doing up there?”
There was nothing in the corner of the ceiling.
Luckily, for that instance, I was able to determine that he was talking to a light fixture on the ceiling—a reassurance that helped me sleep a little better that night.
And as for our “ghost,” my husband and I discussed that this lady that our son spoke of could be in reference to our landlord whom we had been speaking about visiting us, a little earlier that day. It kind of makes sense … Perhaps he was merely asking where the lady that he heard us talking about was, rather than talking about someone he physically saw in the home. And since his three-year-old brain had long forgotten about what he’d said when I asked him about it, we’ll never know for sure.
But I am telling myself that was the reason for it. It certainly makes me feel better than the alternative.
Although, to be honest, given how much my son is a fan of Ghostbusters these days (a great source of excitement for my husband), I almost think he’d love to have a ghost in the house—the Casper kind (not the horror-movie-type spectres). I can see it now … my husband and his Mini-Me running around the house, decked out in their Ghostbusters jumpsuits, blasting spirits with their ecto-wands, trapping them in containment units and having the grandest time ever.
I guess I can be reassured that, for now, it was a false alarm brought on by one-too-many Halloween movies and an overactive imagination on my part (both of which I will not be passing on to my preschooler anytime soon). But, for just a moment (or several, if I’m honest), he really did have me spooked there.
