So I have a question Buffistas might be the most qualified to answer. ltc's current favorite show is Vampirina about a little vampire girl with a ghost and gargoyle as sidekicks. It's siper cute and not at all scary. But lately she's been saying there is a ghost under her bed, which she seems to both want to be true and terrified about. I can't figure out how to deal with the terrified part without taking away her fun play.

Can you give her her own ghost or vampire to help protect her?

I've told her the dragons on the walls are there to protect her, and she has a ton of stuffed animals, but she's not big on them at the moment.

Maybe ask questions about the ghost, suggest if there is one, it's like Vampirina's friend and not scary?

It's hard to know without knowing her in person, but maybe ask her to introduce herself to the ghost? Suggest that he might be afraid of her, too? Has she seen Monsters, Inc. yet?

God, toddlerhood suddenly seems way way back in the far distant past for me.

When my niece had that issue around age3 we tried a few things. We would look around her room (the closet, under the bed, behind the curtains, in her drawers, anywhere she said the monster was) and if it was there I would tell it "It's nighttime now and you have to go home to your own bed and get some sleep" That helped for a few days, but she would still talk about the Mony being around and she was scared of it. So we asked her all sorts of questions about what it was like, what it liked to eat, what it was afraid of, etc. Kinda treating it like we would with her imaginary friends. Found out that Mony didn't like oranges. So we had my niece color a picture of an orange and had her tape it to bed so Mony would stay away. That worked at keeping Mony out of her room, but the next day she told us Mony had just moved to the bathroom so we ended up with pictures of oranges in every rooom! A couple of weeks later she had moved on and we took down all the pictures but left one on the fridge just in case.

That is a fantastic way to handle it Becky. Somehow neither of my kids went through that stage. No clue why.

Meanwhile my life today has been HEADDESK, HEADDESK, HEADDESK, HEADDESK.

Good news for Mom from tax accountant I have vague memories of our biker upstairs neighbor liking to tune his bike over my head when I was a little kid. Mom had to go up and make him stop.

When my nephew was that age he would say there were monsters down the stairs and I would ask him if they were dancing.

Venting...

No, Mr. Private Investigator dude, you do not get to knock on my door to ask about an active insurance claim. No, I will not talk with you. No, I will not let you talk to my son. No, no, no. GTFAway.

I don't know why I'm so livid, but SERIOUSLY. This whole claim is ridiculous. I know what my insurance was going to offer back and it was very generous considering the situation. But fuck. GET OUT, GET OUT, GET OUT.

I have fired off an e-mail to my insurance company. Heck, even if they guy IS from my insurance, my claims gal would have let me know he was coming. And, sadly, I'm so glad Crowley didn't bark during the brief encounter with the dude. Not 5 minutes before, we had gotten our chinese food delivery and he barked really loud at the door bell.