Those of you who know me or who have been reading this blog for a while know that I tend to put more stock in the, ah, spirit world than the average person. I've been fascinated by ghost stories and ESP and visions and all that stuff since I was a little kid - LONG before I got all churchy. I wouldn't necessarily recomMEND this particular fascination, as it tends to get you a long of long looks and skeptical stares and churchy people telling you that your attention is better directed elsewhere, but whatever. Some people are Civil War buffs, I read about Marian apparitions.
AND ALSO I have, over the course of my thirty-two and a half years, had my own experiences, learned about the experiences of others, read a lot, written a lot, prayed a lot, and you know, this is just a Thing I am going to Go With, at this point. As far as I know, none of the Christian religions deny the fact that one day you could be standing in your bathroom brushing your teeth right next to Something Other Worldly. (This actually happened to a friend of mine, according to her roommate who could see spirits.) (Just go with it.)
But still, you don't really talk about it. If you DO, it's generally in a positive sense. Ie: babies are talking to angels, blah blah blah. I would love that, by the way. I hope that's true.
Then again, last night Molly started crying around three in the morning and when I went into her room to see what was up, she informed me that there was a snake under her table.
There was, in case you are wondering, no snake under her bedside table. I told her so.
"But I see it."
"No, honey, there's no snake. You had a bad dream."
"It's looking at me, Mommy."
So. If you are a NORMAL person, you shush the child back to sleep, chalk it up to nightmares, and go back to bed. If you are ME, you try to figure out if the kid is REALLY seeing a snake or if she just DREAMED about a snake and is feeling the lingering effects. Then you shush the child back to sleep, but when you get up to leave and she says, "Don't go, the snake is on the wall", you stay there and pray until the child falls back asleep. Then you go back to your room and pray some more because SNAKES ARE NOT A GOOD THING TO SEE.
(I saw a snake once when I was praying. It was bad news.)
I should say I don't remember either of my kids talking this way before. Seeing stuff, saying it's still there when you tell them there's nothing there... definitely not a trend or anything.
What is a trend: night terrors. We've been dealing with night terrors a lot. I know they are night terrors because when I finally brought it up with the pediatrician, every single symptom was textbook. Waking in the first part of the night, not really present, weird movements, inability to put them back to sleep until they're ready or out of it. In fact, "acting like they're possessed" is an apt description and accepted by my doctor! After my years of figuring out anxiety and coming to the realization that your brain chemistry really CAN screw you up, it makes perfect sense to me that a night terror would be a purely biological thing, stimulated maybe by images before going to bed at night or not winding down properly or what have you. Even if, yes, a night terror is kinda what I would think possession looks like!
I am not saying Molly really did see a snake and I am not saying night terrors are anything other than Weird Crap Kids Do, but I can't say I don't THINK about the other POSSIBILITIES. I mean, it just makes sense to me that small children would be closer to all of that stuff. Closer to God, closer to the holy spirit, closer to anything else that's out there.
Gah now you guys are all MAGGIE HAS LOST HER MIND.
But seriously, you guys. What would YOU think about the snake under the table?
