Scary clowns - the fatigued mama's best friend

Kate's been watching Pee Wee's Big Adventure over and over this past week. She really gets into it -worries about Pee Wee's bike, worries about who's taking care of Speck while he's on this adventure and tells us she's afraid of the clowns. Pee Wee dreams his bike is smashed to bits and taken to the ER where terrifying clowns make a half-hearted attempt at fixing it but then declare it dead, and laugh menacingly about it. "Don't worry" I say "I won't let those clowns get you."

Yesterday I had a migraine. Good LORD my head hurt. It kicked in around lunch time and refused to budge the remainder of the day. So when it was nearly bedtime for Kate, and the TV room was still littered with toys, I found myself fresh out of creative ideas to convince her to clean up her mess. We've made it a game. We've sung songs about it. Last night, I just wanted it done and by golly, I wanted her to do it. After asking several times, oh so politely, that she clean up her toys I finally said "Kate, if you don't clean up those toys the scary clowns will surely get you and there'll be nothing I can do for you at that point."

I stood, bleary-eyed and nauseated, in the doorway of the room while Kate raced frenetically around, throwing toys into the toybox and mumbling over and over "those clowns aren't gonna get me." Jeremiah looked at me, shaking his head disapprovingly. I worried a little that we might be up a lot at night, doing our magical parenting voodoo to clear the room of evil clowns, but mainly I was just pleased to see her fear had been so motivating. I made a mental note of it, in fact. Desperate times call for desperate measures and I fully expect to be desperate again in the near future.