Caleb is getting older. 

And with age comes... fears.

Or maybe that's just something I've noticed.  When Caleb was younger, I think he used to have the occasional nightmare.  About something scary... like not being able to find his paci in the middle of the night!

But yesterday... it got real.

We passed a big milestone.

Fear of GHOSTS!

We were watching a little TV before bed and settled on Scooy Doo (because Caleb thinks he's funny).  This is not just a story about an adorable little boy... it's about a not terribly smart mother.  Because seriously, what mother thinks letting her 2 year old watch Scooby-Doo before bed is a GOOD idea?

Anywho, we watched our half hour of TV to calm down before bed... and that backfired terribly.

Next thing I know, Caleb tells me "MomMom, I so scared.  I SO scared of ghost."  And then he'd kind of hug himself and look really pitiful.

And THEN he'd snuggle on my lap.  Which was kind of awesome. 

Anywho, the whole way through getting him ready for bed, he kept telling me how he was so scared of ghosts.  Which I have to admit freaked me out a little b/c I keep seeing those scary movie previews where the kids tell the parents about the ghosts and the parents can't see them and then the ghosts kill everyone!

Hmmm... do you see where Caleb gets his imagination?

So I tried everything I knew of to get him to not be afraid of ghosts.  We practiced yelling "GO AWAY GHOST!" to scare the ghosts away.  And that didn't work.  I tried telling him that ghosts aren't really there.  That didn't work.  I tried convincing him that ghosts are just as afraid of Mickey Mouse as he is of them.  No deal.

So we ended up having to watch a half hour of Blues Clues to distract Caleb from those awful, scary ghosts!

And I'll admit, I mostly felt bad about being "Mom of the Year" and letting my son watch scary cartoons before bed.  But a teensy tiny part of me thought "I love snuggling with him... maybe I should do this more often?"

My only real regret is that I didn't catch his "MomMom, I so scared" on video.  It was pretty dang cute.