acceptance

Recently, a friend of mine blogged about the need to be careful what we tell our little ones. They are so easily accepting of our explanations of the world. She could not be more right.

A long time ago, I told The Babe that if she was awakened by a nightmare in the middle of the night, the best thing for her to do was to go tinkle. I explained that when you tinkle, all the bad thoughts and scary monsters go away with the tinkle and get flushed down the potty. I figured that I had killed two birds with one stone there: 1.) She believes she got rid of the bad dream and will go back to sleep with very little fuss 2.) She has tinkled, thereby lessening the chance that she would have an accident during the night (we were potty training at the time).

I don't have an explanation for why I made up such a story, and I really have no idea where it came from. All I can say in my defense is that it is very likely I was in a 2:00am haze when I said it. But, however silly it seems, it has worked like a charm, and to this day The Babe believes that if she just tinkles, all the bad thoughts go away.

Tonight was a killer night at work (look at the time I am posting this!), and The Babe was up a couple of times as I was still working. The first time she woke up was around 1:00am. She came to my office to tell me that she had lost her covers during the night. On our way back to her room, I told her she should stop to tinkle. That's another rule of mine, not related to nightmares, that if you are up in the middle of the night, you tinkle (you can tell we had our fair share of night time accidents, can't you?). So, we stopped, she went, and I tucked her back in to bed. But, at around 1:30, she was up again; this time due to a nightmare. Uh-oh.

She had just tinkled the equivalent of Niagra Falls not 30 minutes before. As I am leading her back to her room to tuck her in, she stops me. "Wait mommy! I want to tinkle it out!" So, I'm scrambling... I warned her that she might not have any tinkle left, but never fear! If there is a lack of tinkle, I can tinkle for her! That still counts! OMG, I roped myself into the ridiculous 'tinkle eliminates monsters' theory. Lucky for me she was able to go a bit herself... but I bet she remembers that my tinkle can be called upon during some future midnight tinkle shortage.

*sigh* Yes, we do need to be careful what we tell them... quite careful.