His Mommy and other stuff my kid's nightmares are made of...

Late last night, my oldest son wandered into my room with some type of nightmare, hallucination, sleep-walking episode (sound familiar, Mom?), and told me he did not like the make-up on his face and wanted me to wash it off for him.  It took me a few moments to even understand what his request was, but I finally figured out that he was still upset that we asked if we could put silver make-up on his face to make him look more like a robot.  We respected his wish to not wear the make-up.  The idea seemed to scare him a bit, as the pictures on the make-up box were of the scary variety.  Apparently, his anxiety had crept into his dreams.  I showed him his face in the mirror, and the picture of him dressed up so he could see he wasn't, nor was he ever, covered in that make-up.  It also helped that he was waking up more, so reality was starting to set in for him. 

The poor thing had to skip like 50% of the houses in our neighborhood because he deemed them "too scary" to visit.  Now, in his defense, our neighbors really seem to get into the spooky spirit with very scary, life-like displays of hangings, severed heads and limbs... tons of blood and gore and scary sound effects.  And, also in his defense, he is only 4 years old and has yet to make friends with that monster under his bed. 

Well, I did what any top notch mother would do, and decided to ease my son's irrational fear of costume make-up by showing him that it could be fun.  So, I proceeded to doll myself up as a silly clown.  I could hear him down in his playroom, so I put on a silly hat and went down to delight him with total silliness, all the while smiling to myself over the awards I was gonna win for being "mother of the year".  Instead, I scared the shit out of him.  He literally recoiled in fear, and would not get anywhere near me.  At least the baby thought it was hilarious (the same baby that chases my 4 year old through the house with the "eyeball balloon" I bought them, hissing at his brother because he knows it scares him).  THAT son thought I was a riot, and his brother's fearful reaction only made it more fabulous.  He walked up to me, giggling and poking at my red nose.  I asked my oldest "Isn't it funny?!  I'm a funny clown!"  He said "No.  No, you're not." 

I guess this means I'm out of the running for that "Mother of the Year" award.  Perhaps I shouldn't have cleared a spot for it on my nightstand as I skipped downstairs dressed like "Devil clown, killer of all that is happy for children."  That may have been slightly premature.