Spooky Stories

I have never been the spooky anything type...not when I was younger and not now! If I could avoid them at sleepovers or stay home to keep from seeing a movie you bet I did. So when my baby boys brought up telling spooky stories in the tent after dark with flashlights during our last camping trip my stomach went over backwards (and it was NOT the baby kicking:)!!!!

I have found that I will do things out of my comfort zone more and more in parenting sometimes out of building relationships with the boys and sometimes just out of pure curiosity. This particular instance, it was CURIOSITY that had the most weight! Luring me to that tent were the investigative questions of "who has been telling spooky stories with my precious ones?," "what have they been telling them?," and "what am I gonna do to them when I find out?" Along with these I will be honest was some fear that I kept pushing down and this little pep talk that I gave myself ("Farah, if a 6 & 4 year old can handle it then so can you, grow a backbone, girl!")

It was beyond anything I could have dreamed or imagined! It was one of those little things in life that I hope stays with me forever - I will even fight dementia with cross word puzzles to keep it! My investigations halted as I became completely engrossed in their tiny microphone-like grips of the flashlights. To watch their little faces and expressions light up not only from the flashlight held beneath their chins but from their imaginations sparking and flickering with details was priceless!! My fears calmed as I realized the "spooky" was more "silly" with a dash of "superpower". I inwardly drowned in the humor that took over listening to talk of our family taking on invincibility and jet packs (Faith, the baby, and myself included) to fight off all the bad guys! Story after story, turn after turn, was as blissful as the hot chocolate we drank on that cool night. I am sure the spooky will turn spookier in years to come and I may have to sit a few out but I am so thankful for that night, that moment, and my family.