My son's intuition

For years, whenever the boys get up in the middle of the night, whether for a bad dream or because they are sick, they always come to Jed's side of the bed. Jed is not a big help in the middle of the night and would always send them back to bed if he had his way. For example: Luke, 5, comes in having had a terrible nightmare. He drummed up the courage to walk down the dark hallway into our dark bedroom, with pillow in tow. Jed tells him, "it was just a dream, now go back to bed." Inevitably, I hear talking on the other side of the bed and sit up to find out what the problem is. I get up and walk a scared five year old back to his room and tuck him in reassuring him that all is well and to have sweet dreams. For whatever the reason though, the boys still go to Jed's side of the bed. I never knew why ......until last week.

Noah, 7, was not feeling well. As I kissed him good night I told him, "if you need anything just come and get me." Well, he did just that, and will never do it again. Around midnight, Noah came creeping into my room. So quietly that no one knew he was there (I still maintain it was a little sneaky). He tapped my shoulder and quietly said, "mommy." At this point most moms would stir a little and lean over to see what their little one needed. I am not most moms. Instead, I screamed. That's right, I screamed at the top of my lungs. Which scared the snot out of Noah and so he screamed. Finally the lump sleeping next to me was roused from his slumber and yelled, "what's going on?!"

I suddenly realized what had happened and what I had just done and so I quickly grabbed Noah and hugged him and told him how sorry I was. He was sobbing and asking, "why were you trying to scare me!" At this point I have to admit that I like to scare my kids. I hide behind doors and walls and periodically jump out at them and scream - which gives me little credibility when I tell my son that I wasn't trying to scare him. I also should mention that I come by this sick and twisted fascination of scaring my kids by birth. My father and brother took much joy in seeing me screaming as I walked into a dark room to find one of them lurking, or even worse, Joe Paterno (which is a long story and one I only share with my therapist).

I guess a mother's is not the only intuition out there. My son knew in his gut, that his dad's side of the bed was a safer route. Forever scarred by his mother, my son will not take that fearful trip again - at least not while he still remembers the horror of having his mother scream at him in the middle of a dark room ..... in the middle of the night.