Scary Stuff

I do not like to be scared. I won't go see horror movies, (much to my husband's dismay), and I absolutely refuse to set foot in a haunted house. Right now you are thinking that I am a chicken shit, so let me explain. I don't go see horror movies because I have nightmares that would even scare Stephen King. They are so vivid, and wake up in a cold sweat horrifying, that they usually affect me for days afterwards. When I make the mistake of telling people about my nightmares, they always look at me like I need to seek psychological help immediately. They walk away shaking their head vigorously to rid themselves of the images. It doesn't take much to make me have one of these freakishly scary nightmares. Usually if I see a five minute preview of an upcoming horror flick, I know I'm in for a sleepless night. Just a few seconds of the suspenseful music, as the girl walks achingly slowly, towards that slightly open closet door, is enough to almost make me pee my pants.

Moving on to the haunted house aversion. My dad used to take my cousins and I to haunted houses as kids, and I did ok. I do recall refusing to open my eyes the entire way through one, after a witch tried to take my hand, but I think I did ok most of the time. Then, one year, we went to a haunted hike, which was held in the woods next to a local store. As we stood in line waiting, we heard screams, and then a guy ran past me with a bloody knife, and hid behind a tree about 3 feet from me. We assumed it was part of the act, until the police cars and ambulance showed up, and we were told the hike was closed for the rest of the evening. We found out later that the guy I had seen had stabbed one of the workers in the hike! (SCREAM!!!) Now that's scary!

I don't want Dylan to miss out on the fun of horror movies and haunted houses just because his mommy is wimpy. Luckily, he has Jim to fill the scary void. But, Dylan might take after me regardless of what Jim does. I say that because we took him in his first haunted house yesterday and the picture shows how he felt about it! We took him to a birthday party that was at a farm, and included his first hayride, pumpkin patch, some baby ducks and goats, and the haunted house. We figured that it would just have pumpkins or scarecrows dressed slightly spooky, and that it wouldn't be a big deal. After all, it was for kids! It would be a safe introduction to haunted houses for our 10 month old who isn't afraid of anything but the milk running out.
We were wrong! It was so dark in there I had trouble navigating through, the characters were pretty intense, and when you walked through one area it set off a loud noise and an already uneasy Dylan. We rushed for the door, and I tried to convince myself we didn't just traumatize our son. Luckily, with his memory, he forgot about it five minutes later, as he was climbing over pumpkins in the pumpkin patch, happy as a clam.

He already inherited my itchy, rashy skin, and possibly my allergies. I hope he didn't inherit my wimpiness! I want him to be strong, and have no fears. What if he inherits all my bad traits and doesn't get the good ones that I hope to pass on? Now that is truly scary. I'll probably have a nightmare about it.