So this week at family dinner, the topic switched to child behaviours and nightmares and some old memories were discussed.
My mother recalled that my elder sister would always try to stay up as long as she could, I was always easy to get to sleep as a child but my younger brother was an absolute terror when it came to nap-time. Dad mentioned that one time he checked in on my sister - it was 11pm and she was sitting up singing '
la la la la la' to herself. Of course, her battle to stay up all hours backfired on her too, like one time she fell asleep during dinner and face-planted into her food.
We got onto nightmares, and mum mentioned that on our first trip to Australia (I was about three then) my grandfather found a set of oven mitts that looked like a crocodile's jaws and came at me with them - jokingly of course, but that night I screamed the house down apparently, yelling incoherently about crocodiles.
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Probably something like this |
I was also terrified of crabs and vividly remember my mum sighing and getting up off her deck chair at the beach so I could stand up on it for safety
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What I saw |
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Of course, the crab just walked right past us both, ignoring us. Mum proved there was no risk, but I maintained my irrational fears for several years. I think it was to do with a book I had been given for my birthday (and I still own it, actually!) that had a rhyming section about crabs pinching ten different toes.
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Probably what actually happened |