Nightmares abound in our house.

I have been having this one where a strange balding man with longish blonde hair and bulging blue eyes shows up at our door and he's grinning through the window and I smile back thinking to myself,"What does this redneck want?" As I get to the door, I realize that Mike's dad is with this man and I simply couldn't see him through the curtain and shadows at the door. I tell Mike,"Call 911!" and my whole body goes into fight or flight mode. Invariably, I wake up shaking and terrified.

I always get up, pee, and check the kids and shuffle back to bed, where I toss and turn until I have to wake up for work. We've told daycares, the school, and our employers. We are doing everything to protect the kids. We had the stranger danger conversation with Russell. He's scared, but he knows what to say if he's alone for some reason. There have been two times this fall where he didn't listen to the instructions and he didn't go to daycare like he should and he was home alone. He had the good sense to call Mike at his number on the fridge and Mike came home and stayed with him, so all told he was only alone for 20 minutes, but it sure scared the crap out of us. So we told him what to do, if someone called. We told him to tell them that we were out in the garage working on something and to take a message and we'd call them back.

Last night, I went and saw The Santa Clause 2 with my friend, Mel. It was a cute movie, but it meant missing the kids goodnight rituals. Neither of them slept well. Mike said Genny got up until 10 looking for me. At 11, Russell came out claiming he needed a drink of water, which is something he never does. He saw me there and said hi and went back to bed.

Mike and I were in bed, having our nightly good night giggle and snuggles, including something where he said he wanted to rub my butt and I told him he could rub my feet because they were ice cubes. He claimed that wasn't possible and then I put my icicles on his thighs whereupon he cussed and covered them up to warm them up and we were both giggling. Enter Russell sobbing and telling us between tears he wasn't sleeping because he was having nightmares. I lifted up the blankets and had him get into bed with me and cuddled him. He told me that a man shot him. Wow.

So, I had Mike get up and lock all the doors, I told Russell to ask God to keep him safe and let him sleep, and most of all, I told him I love him.

I'm seeing Bruno on Wednesday and I told him I needed help formulating a plan of safety.