today, rob took mimi to the national air and space museum in d.c. when they got home, she was out cold, so rob put her to bed. a couple of hours later, i hear mimi crying hysterically and coughing intermittently (she recently developed a phlemy cough that i have been praying will not turn into croup as most of her coughs are wont to do). rob was already in the room trying to calm her down. when i sat down next to her, she got up and climbed into my arms to be held. she wouldnt tell me why she was crying, so i took a stab at it and asked if she had a bad dream. she finally said she had a dream that scared her. when i asked what was scary in her dreams she said in a fearful voice, CRABS! i choked on a relieved laugh/cough and asked what was scary about crabs and she said 'the crabs were eating me!' poor kid. not sure where she got that from! i said, that was a dream crabs. are dream crabs real or pretend? i expected her to say pretend, which she's told me in the light of day are pretend, but she insisted these were very real.
when we couldnt quite convince her that there were no crabs in our house to eat her, rob tried to get her mind off the scary crabs and had her tell me all about her visit to the air and space museum. she calmed and now she is watching the Backyardigans on Noggin and dancing along with them. it's the one about the detectives. i had the lights on in the living room, but since this is a mysterious whodunnit, she goes over to the light switch and turns off the lights and is now prancing around the living room like an uncover spy. this is the duality of her wonderful preschooler imagination...it can be a source of great pleasure and of terror.
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