Nightmares

Ashley has been plagued by nightmares every night for the past week or so. They are vivid enough that she can recall in detail when she wants to. Most nights, she won't tell us what they are about, they scare her that much.

What this means is her sleep has been interrupted repeatedly. There was one morning where she was up for the day at 4:45am. There have been nights where I have laid on the floor beside her bed, there have been nights she has begged to come to our bed. Considering we already have a certain three year old occupying our bed at that time, we try to comfort her by rubbing her back, turning on her ceiling fan, consoling her.

Tonight, we tried something new. I told her, kind of jokingly, that we needed to cleanse her room. This comes from watching the Exorcist too many times. She latched onto the idea, and I told her I had special spray I could use to cleanse her room. We even ran into our next door neighbor, the one with the most Halloween decorations on our street, and I casually mentioned Ashley's sleep troubles. She told Ashley that the special spray would most definitely work. She had used it many times on her kids.

So into the house we went. I found some random bottle of Febreze under my sink, and all of us traipsed upstairs. I told them I needed to do the cleanse alone, in the dark, just to add to the effect. So I went into her room and shut the door. I sprayed the special spray, which actually made the room smell somewhat better, and left, closing the door behind me. I told Ashley that it needed a few minutes to set in. Of course Audrey demanded her room to be cleansed, so I did hers as well.

And now Ashley is asleep. Last night, the nightmares hit about 11:30pm. I am keeping my fingers crossed this worked.