A sharp cry from our daughter wakes us up from a deep slumber. As deep as it can get with a 3 year old and an infant in the house. I sprint to her room and hold my now uncontrollably sobbing daughter.
“It’s okay sweetie. Mommy is right here” I attempt to console her.
“Crocodile …. sob sob … boat … crocodile .. sob sob … lake” she garbles as the decibels of her wailing shoot up and she breaks into a fresh wave of intense cries.
A nightmare! I pacify her that it was a bad dream but she won’t let up.
“I want to go … ” she says. “You’re fine, it was only a bad dream” I repeat.
“I want to go to the crocodile lake … sob sob .. in the car …”
“You mean, you want to go to the car away from the crocodile lake ?”
Crying intensifies with some irritability thrown into the mix. Apparently, we’re quite thick in the head. ” Nooooo … I want to go to the boat in the crocodile lake …”
Quizzical looks exchanged between already perplexed dad & I. “But honey if you’re afraid of the crocodile don’t you want to go away from it?”
“No …. I want to go to it …sob sob … because I’m brave! … sob sob” sigh!
We resign, applaud her bravado and secretly hope it never comes to this. We promise to take her there once it stops raining. Thankfully it doesn’t stop raining till the next day until which time we are able to with a good measure of success distract her to more sundry problems.
Lessons on why it may not perhaps be the best idea for a show of bravery by facing a toothy crocodile in the middle of a lake? Saved for another day 🙂
