We unintentionally traumatized our daughter last week.
Close Encounters of the Third Kind was on television. I have never seen it so my husband announced we would have family movie night. We thought nothing of it. Hadley (4) and Bode (2) have played in the room when we’ve watched movies plenty of times before. The difference? Hadley decided to watch with us.
My kids are pretty sheltered, only watching shows like Dora the Explorer and the occasional episode of Ugly Betty. But Swiper the Fox and villainous Willamina Slater don’t have anything on UFOs and aliens.
Who knew?
The children watched the first 45 minutes with us and then we put them to bed. A few minutes later, Hadley was back, professing she was scared.
I have to admit, we kind of blew her off. I mean, the kid doesn’t usually get scared and would give Boo of Monsters Inc. a run for her money. We gave her a soothing hug and a kiss and told her to go back upstairs.
We didn’t hear another peep out of her but then we found out why. After the movie, I rounded the corner from our TV room and there was poor sweet Hadley, passed out on the floor. She had been too freaked out to go to her room by herself and had fallen asleep.
Remorse enveloped me and we carried her to her bed. That’s when the screaming started. Jamie soothed her for a while and finally brought her in our bedroom. “I have a plan,” he announced. He placed her beside me in bed and walked out of the room. Some plan.
Once she fell asleep, he miraculously came back and put her in her own bed but she kept waking up and she eventually came to sleep in our bed.
At least one of us slept that night.
Good wife that I am, I blame my husband. I should have seen him planting the early seeds of trauma. Back when Haddie was 2, she was watching Chevy Chase’s Vacation with him and I overheard the following conversation:
“Wow, Daddy. What are they doing?”
“Just looking for a place to dispose of the body, Sweetie.”
I'm a Canadian-born mom of two, former Denver Post columnist, family travel writer, editor of MileHighMamas.com and 9News contributor. Expert on all things Utah, Denver, family and travel. Lover of laughter and life. Happily married to a man obsessed with growing The Great Pumpkin. 