An Interesting Experience

Last night, my two-year-old daughter ran into the darkened kitchen and came running back out at double the speed.

"Mummy!" she called. "Mummy, 'cared!" She had never told me that she was frightened before.

"Oh, come here, my baby," I told her. "What are you afraid of?"

"Kitchen. Dark."

I took her into the kitchen, flipped on the light and showed her that everything was okay. Satisfied, we walked back into the foyer.

For some reason that I can't recall, we started singing a song from a Backyardigans episode: It's Great To Be A Ghost.

When I make that moaning sound,
I get the urge to float around.
With my arms out before me, I can float all day
And there's a word I heard a ghost once say
It's boo...

There is a dance that accompanies the music and we love to act it out.

Then, she started talking about "a ghost". I couldn't understand what she
was saying, so I asked her questions that sounded similar:

"Do you see a ghost, Gigi?"

"Yes."

"Where is the ghost, honey?"

Then, she took me back through the kitchen and down the step to the mudrooom area. She stopped at the top of the stairs to the basement.

"There," she pointed without prompting. She was pointing to the bottom of the stairs. I couldn't see anything.

"The ghost is in the basement?"

"Yes."

"What does the ghost look like?"

I forgot that I was speaking to a just-turned-two-year-old. The question didn't make sense to her and I was at a loss for any questions that she would understand.

I had to wonder: Had she orchestrated our play to tell me about a ghost?