Last night Hope had probably the worst night’s sleep she’s had for several months … and it seems to be the fault of a cat and a mouse.
She fell asleep quickly enough but kept on waking up and crying out, “oh dear, meow hurting”. To start with I waited to see if she’d settle herself again but she didn’t and just got more and more upset. She spent the whole night being “sad” about Tom (from Tom and Jerry) hurting and she wept and wept and wept about it and when she was asleep she had dreams that led her to shout out, “no no no bad naughty, hurting, meow hurting NO”. It was a very long night!
This morning we went to her little playschool, normally a place where she is very happy and settled, friendly and joining in. Not this morning, she cried, she screamed, she climbed and she yelled, she fell over, she howled, she wouldn’t eat, she wouldn’t join in and she was generally miserable. She does have the tail end of a cold and she was extraordinarily tired, but again she kept on muttering, “oh dear oh dear” to herself. Poor little soul really didn’t know quite what to do.
Afterwards we went and had a bowl of soup with her Daddy who was concerned to see her so tired and unsettled, that really wasn’t a huge success as she was not herself and was clingy and fussy so we’ve come home and she’s now sleeping flat out clutching hold of her cat hat (which she insisted on wearing while we were having our soup), the last thing she said before she drifted off was “oh dear mouse, Hopey has cat”.
So now I need to ponder how to bring her out the other side of the cat and mouse trauma … a picture of T&J looking friendly and smiling, lots of distraction and maybe I shall watch a few episodes on YouTube and see if there is one where poor old Tom isn’t blown up, frozen, electrocuted, chopped up and generally damaged and then show her that… or maybe we’ll just concentrate on going for a walk, throwing leaves in the air, jumping in puddles and coming home and painting a picture for her cousin’s birthday card.
Have I become Mary Whitehouse? Maybe … I have been taken aback by the strength of her response to one cartoon. I don’t want to cosset her but I do want to allow her to discover things for herself, to have experiences and not to worry about things that aren’t even real until she is old enough to understand that and make her own decisions.
I played a CD in the car on the way home and the song Three Little Speckled Frogs came on, and she shouted, “Yay tree frogs”, the song ended and she applauded, the next CD clicked into play and Bruce Springsteen started singing “Pay me my money down”, (old American folk song from the Seeger Sessions album) and she began to cheer and clap even more loudly, “hurrayyyyy, yay, happy Hope, yay Pay Mi”, and that made me feel happy again. I’ve never seen her the way she was last night and I hope that her favorite songs and playing outside will blow the woes of the outwitted pusscat firmly out of her mind.
Maybe we could turn the television into a coffee table or something …
See they’re friends and they’re both happy … I wonder if this will work?
