The $2.99 Nightmare

I guess the app looked a lot less scary on a buddy's iPad (actually the parents' iPad) and because I am happy to let my youngest play games on my iPhone, I agreed to get the app for Jack.

I never looked at the app or previewed it beyond the screen shots that are at the end of the app description. But even if I had, I'm not sure it would've mattered. Jack played the game with his friend at my older boy's soccer game and never displayed any fear, apprehension or anything that would've led me to NOT get the app.

It wasn't until the middle of the night that the subject matter finally got to him. He woke up screaming and ran lightening fast to my room. And now, almost one week later, he is afraid to be in any room by himself, making bedtime nearly unbearable.

The app of doom is...

Plants vs. Zombies

I'm pretty sure it wasn't just the app that has caused all this fear and anxiety. I think he's also seen a commercial that involved zombies, not in their cutesy animated form, but in human-actor-spent-hours-in-makeup form. This is positively frightening to an already spooked 6 year old.

At bath time, he normally takes over the master bathroom tub which is like a pool to a little guy. There are about 700 Duplo Legos floating around and he plays in there for a good 30 minutes while I sit on my bed knitting or watching tv.

Not any more. Now he feels I need to be next to the tub the entire time. Needless to say, my evenings are spent trying to convince him there's nothing to fear. And staying by his side the entire evening.

I am wracking my brains trying to fix this problem. My older boy has tried to help by loaning Jack his dream catcher. He even clipped it to the drapes so it's above Jack's bed. Then he made a dream catcher out of K'Nex for him, too! Jack was skeptical as to the effectiveness of any dream catcher but Connor really believes in it and so he has tried his best to convince Jack that it will help. To be sure, Jack has slept all through the night the last two nights, but it's the getting him to sleep that has proved challenging.

I even passed the baton to my husband last night since Connor needed me to help him with a school project. And I could hear my husband saying to Jack (quite robustly) "man up, Jack! Go to sleep!"

That ought to work.