"I'm scared!"

Throughout our years of parenting, we've often run across the child that will say, "I'm scared."  My children learned early on to come to me.  I have more sympathy than Ladd does.  Mckenzie has been perhaps more affected than her sibblings.  In the past, when Mckenzie would wake up during the night, she'd be unreasonable, and simply sob the whole time.  We quickly learned that if we pointed her towards the bathroom, she would do her thing then sink gratefully back onto her pillow.  Her habbits have morphed as she's gotten older.  We've realized she now does a bit of sleep walking.  It usually has a trip to the bathroom attached to it along with conversations that take ages to get through and usually don't make much sense.  Cecilia experienced one of these moments the other day.  Cecilia saw her come out of her room so she directed her to the restroom.  Mckenzie went to the toilet, put her hands on the side of her pants and then said, "But where do I put this?!"

Mckenzie has added being scared in the middle of the night to her sleep walking as well.  She knows that if she comes to me, I'll encourage her to think good thoughts, sing Primary songs, read the scriptures, and pray.  Usually our talk includes me praying with her.  One night, this didn't satisfy her, so I sent her to bed with a flashlight.  She's slept with a flashlight shining in her eye since then.  Lately, because of Ladd's night shift schedule, Ladd's been providing me with a buffer so I could sleep.  He's been fielding some of these nightly episodes.  This last weekend he experienced one more conversation that illustrated not only the difference between our approaches, but our lack of sleep as well.  Ladd had just gotten into bed after picking Cecilia up at 2 a.m. from her Shakespeare Trip.  Their conversation went something like this:

Mckenzie:  "Dad, I'm scared."

Ladd:  "Okay."

Mckenzie:  "What should I do?!"

Ladd:  "I don't know.  What do you want to do?  If I were you, I'd go back to bed."

Mckenzie:  "Can we say a prayer?"

Ladd:  "Okay."

Mckenzie:  "Dad.  Will you say it?"

Ladd:  "Sure."

Ladd explained to me that he started the prayer and must have dozed off because the next thing he knew I piped up.

Me:  "In the name of Jesus Christ, AMEN!"

I have no memory of interjecting.  I have no memory of their conversaton at all.  I must've been tired.
As far as we know, Mckenzie made her own way back to bed.