Dream a Little Dream

One of the things the "experts" warn of when little one approach the age of 3 is that that is the age when children often start to have very vivid dreams, even scary ones.

That was evident this week.

As I wrote about in my previous post, little man likes to sleep with his security blanket (aka "doggie lovie") over his ear. He once told me this was because it helped "keep the dinoswaurs away." I had suspected that he had had a bad dream involving dinosaurs.

This morning I walked down to get little man's coat so we could head out the door to preschool/work and saw little man laying on the couch.

"Are you sleepy?" I asked him.

"Yeah," little man mumbled.

I put his coat on him and carried him to the car. We were on our way when little man shared why he was so sleepy with me.

"The dinoswaurs came when I was slweeeeping," he said.

"Oh?" I asked him. "Is that why you're so sleepy, because you had a bad dream?"

"Yeah," he said. "There were big dinoswaurs. With scary big eyes."

"Oh, I'm sorry buddy, that must have been scary," I said. "But dinosaurs are nice, they won't hurt you," I said in an attempt to qualm his fears.

"No mommy. They ate him," little man said.

Then mommy had big eyes.

"Who ate what?" I cautiously asked him.

"The big dinoswaur ate the little dinoswaur," he said. "Ate him all gone."

I didn't know what to say. Although little man typically loves dinosaurs, I was always cautious about what his exposure to dinosaurs was. No scary dinosaur movies like Jurassic Park. Just nice ones, like The Land Before Time or Elmo's Dinosaurs.

Or so I thought.

"The big dinosaur ate ... the little dinosaur?" I asked him to clarify.

"Yeah. Ate him," little man said. "Gomp, gomp, gomp," little man said as he impersonated a dinosaur eating.

"No, they were just playing," I said in an effort to spin it. "I'm sure they were nice dinosaurs."

I looked up at my rear view mirror to see little man's face.

He was not amused.

"No mommy. He ate him. Ate him up," he said.

I reached down and hit "play" on the DVD player. Bob the Builder popped onto the screen.

And The Land Before Time was then moved to the back of the DVD book.