"Don-tey Scare Me"

Seth was home this morning and so he woke up with Isaac and let Ezra and I sleep in. (These are my favorite mornings.)

I woke up, though, to a shrill scream and the sound of Isaac running. As I lay there, gathering my bearings, I heard Seth talking to Isaac and trying to comfort him.

  "Isaac, what's the matter? Can you show me? Are you hurt?"
  [soft crying]
  "Isaac, are you scared? Can you tell me what scared you?"
  [pointing to the front window, where Isaac had been standing]
  "Isaac, Daddy will hold you. I will protect you and keep you safe. Tell me what you saw out of the window."
  [shivering and glaring out of the window] "Don-tey scare me. Don-tey scare me."
  "A donkey scared you? A donkey? Isaac, did you see a deer?"
  "Deer. Baby horse. Don-tey scare me."

Isaac then proceeded to cling to Seth for the next few minutes and repeat "don-tey scare me" until Seth brought him to me and Isaac told me the same thing again. The best we can determine, Isaac might have seen the deer that Seth had seen earlier in the morning. He certainly saw something that scared him! And several times today Isaac has brought it up again, in random intervals. Each time he ran to me and needed me to hold him and reassure him. I'm a bit apprehensive that he'll have nightmares tonight, and remember it tomorrow.

"There's a Rattlesnake Under My Stage"

We were watching a bit of The Nutcracker and Ezra, of course, decided he wanted to start dancing. So he dressed up and started twirling around the living room, with frequent requests to "watch this move!"

He stopped, however, panting and declared he was "out of energy". When I asked him why he was out of energy, he replied "well, there was a rattlesnake under my stage and that made me have to run away!"