Freak Out

Alyssa has decided that being freaked out is fun. She loves to read books about ghosts or haunted areas in Ohio (she gets these from the school library.)

She’s fascinated by the books I read, such as Mrs. Peregrine’s School for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs. I just finished that one and she loved the freaky pictures throughout the book.

I’m now reading Dean Koontz’s 77 Shadow Street and she keeps asking what’s happening, why that happened, what is going to happen.

I don’t mind telling her these things except…the freak out. She is now scared to go upstairs by herself. At night, if we’re all in the living room and she has to go to the bathroom, she turns on the kitchen light, the hall light and the bathroom light. The downstairs half-bath is all of ten feet from the living room.

And honestly, if that were it, I still wouldn’t be bothered.

What gets to me is that her freak outs are interfering with my life. I know! A mother having to deal with her child, the horror.

But seriously. These nighttime trips to the bathroom with her because she’s afraid to go alone? I’m over it.

So we’re cancelling the reading of anymore books about ghosts or haunting and I’m not answering any more questions about the books I’m reading.

I’m all about the fun of being scared. I love horror movies and scary books (hence my reading of a book written by Dean Koontz.) But at nine, Alyssa obviously isn’t ready for this and as her mature mother, it’s up to me to set limits. We just won’t tell her that it’s mostly because her freak outs are inconveniencing me, right?