Conquering nightmares with dreams

It has been an almost nightly wee hours of the morning occurrence for a few weeks now. Because of the heat and the excessive cost of air conditioning in this heat, we do what many other missionary families choose to do - we all sleep in one room. Yes... all ten of us, mattresses piles on the floor for the kids, furniture pushed up next to the walls, small battery powered lanterns for the biggers who want to continue reading or finishing homework after the lights go out, the thermostat set on 31' C, and many prayers that electricity continues at least mostly uninterrupted during the nighttime hours.

Of course, that means that littlest one stumbles to the bathroom sometime around midnight trips onto our waterbed and begins the slow process of plopping, flopping and kerplopping her way up to the pillows and the middle of the bed. It really reminds me of a fish on the shore trying to find its way back to where it needs to be. She then promptly smashes her nose against my face and I thank the Lord that the fan is still spinning. Otherwise sleep would become an impossibility, at least for me, in this heat with a little one smashed up against me.

Forty-five minutes or so later, I can usually extricate myself from her sweet but very tight grasp, roll over and go back to sleep, at least for awhile...

...until...

She starts kicking and pushing, thrashing about, muttering and crying - real tears. I hear her dad mumble something and throw a pillow over his head in frustration. I turn back towards her to wrap her in my arms and gently whisper her awake. Somewhere around the 5th night this has happened, I finally I make out some words: "big," "ugly," "mean" and "cockroach" clearly articulated... several times. A few nights later, having been able to distinguish those same words (as well as others), it is quite clear that she's developed a persistent cockroach phobia....

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Join me over at Missionary Moms' Companion, where I posted yesterday, if your curiosity is peaked and you want to find out more about littlest one's nightmares...

~ Afraid ~

We regularly have visitors in the house at night...

Crickets crawl out of who knows where and run rampant all over the house. Thankfully, their singing doesn't seem to disturb anyone's sleep because they get really loud.

For 9 months now, there always seems to be one living between the pantry closet and the kitchen counter - no way for me to get to him for a catch and release rescue - and he likes to keep me company when I'm cooking or baking early in the morning, before the rest of the house wakes up. Most of the time.... As I busy around in the kitchen he chirps and sings - unless I turn on the KitchenAid. Then he grows silent and resentful and may not chatter anymore until the next day.

At first, I thought they were crawling up from the sink and shower drains - but even when I cover them, they still show up.

Their favorite hang out seems to be the master bathroom, right off our bedroom. It is not unusual to see 10 to 15 of the little and not so little buggers running around if you make a bathroom trip at night and boy do they start chirping if you disturb their antics by flipping on the light.

Our M&M cracks me up, though, when it comes to dealing with these critters.

Someone, somewhere, told her not to mess with those crickets because if you do and they get irritated, they'll bite. Now, I've not done any research to find out who told her that or if it is actually true (I do try to avoid stepping on them, but more because that would just be gross and not because I'm worried about getting bitten), but what cracks me up is her reaction.

If she needs to make a bathroom trip during the night (and she frequently does) she begs me NOT to turn the light on. She doesn't want to know if they are there... she'd rather not see ANYTHING and  assume there's no danger or problem instead of allowing the light show her where potential danger lies so she can avoid, escape or rid her world of it (with a wad of tp and a quick flush).

It is easy to chalk that up to childhood immaturity...

So what, then, do we do with the truth of the following quote?

I'm praying the Lord shows me those areas where I've been choosing to stumble around blindly in the dark because I'm afraid of what I just might see if I flip on the light.

Wordless Wednesday ~ i know she does stuff like this just 'cause she knows i think it is creepy...