The Boogeygirl

Last night, by the time I came home from my neighbor's house, my kids were in bed.

David mentioned that Sawyer was sleeping with Sage. Because they were scared.

Scared?

After I heard all the giggling, I decided I'd better go investigate. Mainly because it was after 9 and I was starting to consider whether I was going to go to bed, and it's seems, well, unseemly to go to sleep before your kids.

There they were, snuggled up in Sage's bed. Each had a mag light. And their Kung Zhus.

Because who doesn't need some kind of crazy ninja hamster to protect them?

AnyIwishmyhusbandwouldstopbuyingthiscrap, I asked what was going on. They said they're scared, because a neighbor kid? He told them that there was this Mean Girl who roamed the street in the middle of the night and attacked kids.

Now, this child did get some hair literally ripped out of his head last summer by Mean Girl. But not in the middle of the night. MG lives on a street right near ours and occasionally wanders up, so something must've happened.

She and her sister and a friend - they're all tweens - were sitting on the curb of the house diagonally across from mine. Meanwhile, MY kids - and eight other neighbor kids - were on their bikes and razors and were yelling "KILL THEM" at the girls. From a safe distance of a 100 yards or so.

When we figured out what was going on we made the kids stop shouting. Which is when the older brother of the child who got his hair yanked out told me about the incident.

I didn't think much about it after that. I went over to my neighbor's house to see the new flooring and to chat. David took Sawyer and Sage home (X was sleeping, this was about 8:30 p.m.).

And there I was, about 45 minutes later, trying to assure my kids that no Boogeygirl was going to rip out their hair in their sleep, and that I was sure HER mommy wouldn't let her wander the neighborhood late at night.

Logic has no impact on the imagination of a child. How many times, when I was little, did I lie awake at night, terrified by the shadows on the wall, SURE it was someone outside my second-story window? Or a creak or bang or rustle left me wide-eyed, peering out from under my blanket?

Hell, I STILL do that, when David's out of town. Even though I know it's silly. Even though I have two large dogs and bolt locks and an alarm system. I still get a little freaked out by things that go bump in the night.

Sawyer eventually returned to his own room. But Sage? After a visit at 10:30 to get a drink of water and pee, she went back to her room - only to return 30 minutes later. She crawled into our bed and fell asleep, and David was able to return her to her bed.

She woke up this morning. And guess what she said.

"Mommy? He was just trying to scare us."


Things always seem much clearer in the morning's light.