Ruby has been dreading this day for weeks. She was so excited to learn that it would be happening on a Wednesday, when she would be at Forest School, but then very upset to learn that it would happen on one of those magical few Wednesdays between the fall and spring Forest School sessions. Yes, […]
Category Archives: Scary
The Night Voices
Edward was creeping down the stairs again as I tried to finish reading Ruby her story. My wife took the turn this time and brought him back upstairs as I continued with Harry Potter. It was unusual for Edward to be out of bed; we had won a long and hard bedtime routine battle and […]
That Time I Actually Thought the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man Was Coming For Me
The year: 1986. The place: Rural Vermont. The boy: Me. The event: Ghostbusters. The result: Chaos. I had been dying to see Ghostbusters for what felt like my entire life. All of my friends at school had seen it, and the marketplace was flooded with 1st grader appropriate Ghostbusting merchandise. Every book order form was […]
The Diminishing Returns of Repeated Scare Tactics
Every night after we read stories and take medicine and put jammies on, we send my daughter up to brush her teeth and then one of us parents goes up to tuck her in. One day, as I was walking up the darkened stairs to her bedroom, she jumped out and yelled “Boo!” at me, […]
Terrifying Swimsuit Face
I am trying to write a good post for today. I swear that I am. But I can’t. I’m too creeped out by the terrifying swimsuit face. It keeps staring at me from across the room and I can’t concentrate. I was going to write something about how the whole family went to Kids Day […]
Things That Used to Be Scary
Do you remember when things used to be scary? Halloween was full of nasty creatures that terrified us, and stories used our hidden fears to create monsters that spoke to things we couldn’t even put into words. Our fear of the unknown drove us to imagine horrible bloodsucking vampires, monstrous werewolves, eerie ghosts, and wicked […]