Thunder storm negotiations

Mia hates thunderstorms.  Ever since she was rudely awoken from her beauty rest one night, she has had an intense fear and hatred of them.  When one is lurking, or even mentioned on the radio, she seizes up with terror and sets about on a stream of frantic questions.

Tonight at dinner the sky was ominous.  It wasn’t raining yet but every now and then off in the distance  you could hear the faint sounds of rumbling thunder.  I talked loudly over the first few rumbles but on the third one she froze dead in her tracks.  Her head and torso paralyzed with fear, it was only her eyes that were able to swivel frantically towards me; she looked like a crazy haired chamelion.

“Uh….WHAT was THAT??” she asked, dropping her fork.

It was SO TEMPTING to ease her fears with a little white lie.  It would have made the rest of dinner and our evening SO much smoother if only we could have faked our way out of the impending storm.  One look at the darkening sky told me my idea was futile.

“I think it was thunder Mia…off in the distance…” (of course)

Mia’s first protective instinct is completely irrational and TOTALLY out of character for her (or ANY 3 year old for that matter…)

“I think it’s bedtime.” She said resolutely, still without moving her head or body at all.

It was 5 o’clock.

I went on to reassure her that it was NOT yet bedtime, that the room was dark because of the clouds and that we were all safe in the house where thunder and lightening couldn’t hurt us.

The idea of going straight to bed as soon as the storm arises is actually quite irrational seeing as the FIRST thing she does during a midnight storm is to LEAVE her bed (or crib) and come and find us before staunchly REFUSING to have ANYTHING more to do with her room.  I don’t get much sleep during thunderstorms…

Well…if she wasn’t allowed to GO to bed to AVOID the storm, her next step was to prepare herself.

“Tonight, Mommy, if there’s thunder I’m going to just come and find you in your bed.”

I want to be the kind of mom that is attentive to my children’s needs.  I love that she finds comfort in me and that I am able to ease her middle of the night fears, but this was my one and ONLY chance to argue my point in order to get myself a full night’s sleep.

“Or you could just stay in YOUR bed, Mia,” I began, “Because YOU know the thunder won’t hurt you but all of your babies don’t know that yet and they may want you to stay with them in your crib and tell them that it’s OK and that the thunder won’t hurt them.”

With another sideways glance of a chamelion, my wise 3 year old made it CLEAR to me that she could see through my feeble attempt at sleep preservation and sloughed my suggestion off without missing a beat.

“NO, my babies don’t need me.  They have ANOTHER mommy in the crib who will do that for them.”

Oh REALLY…and WHO was this other mommy?  I called her bluff.

“BIG Mommy.”

I was about to ask another question about Big Mommy when Mia hastily got down off her stool and ran to her bedroom.  She was gone a few minutes (presumably rearranging things?  Finding said ‘Big Mommy’?) and then rushed back to the dinner table after definitively SHUTTING her bedroom door behind her.

“Yup!” she said resolutely, “I had a talk with them.  NO ONE in my crib is scared of the thunder and BIG MOMMY is in there with them in case they get scared.”

Well, that’s one thing I can cross off of my worry list.

“So if the thunder comes tonight I will come and find you, RIGHT, Mommy?”

“Right, Mia.”

Sometimes it feels good to be needed.