Ok, here's the deal.......I'm sure you guys are familiar with those little lizards (gekos), right? Well, we get them in our house every once in awhile....and evidently one has taken up room & board in Andie's room. She walked into her room last night and saw it on the wall, then saw it dash behind her dresser.

Of course, this being at night, the only light in her room coming from the hallway, made for a pretty shocking experience (for her, anyways!) and pretty much freaked her totally out!! Nothing we said or did last night helped, we tore her room apart looking for the @(&$(# thing, never found it (altho Ty pretended he did, "took it outside to let it go"). She ended up sleeping in the spare BR, along with about 100 of her stuffed animals.

This morning, not so bad, I think she more or less forgot about it. BUT we got home from school and she's freaking out about it again! :doh: I even hung a little angel up over her bed for her "guardian angel", I told her I cleaned her room totally and there was NOTHING left, just her normal fun stuff. I tried taking her over to her dresser so she could look behind it for herself to see there was nothing there but she TOTALLY freaked, covering her eyes, crying "I want to go OOOOUUUUUUT!!!!!"

I've taken the explaining road telling her everything's fine now & all that, I've taken the sympathetic road telling her I understand how she got scared last night but she doesn't need to be scared any more, I've even taken the logical road telling her that since the lizard's gone now and everything's back to normal there's no reason to be scared. Nothing's working.

I'm planning on having her in her room for quiet time today to get used to it again, but I'm afraid the whole drama will start again tonight at bedtime.

Should I be hard-nosed & just have her sleep in her room, period? Or should I just let it go and hopefully after a couple nights in the spare room she'll go back to her room on her own? I just don't want her to get used to sleeping in the other room, yannow?

What to do, what to do? Enlighten me..... B)

I would make her sleep in her room.

That's what I'm leaning towards.....after lunch today, we played in her room for awhile, and now she's in there for her quiet time watching Veggie Tales (Lord of the Beans :D )....with no complaints.

That right there tells me it's mostly drama....

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It's not her fault....cut the chick some slack....let her deal with the issue and if she needs to sleep in the spare then whats the big deal.

I say let her decide.

Or a more "Squattish" idea would be to tell her how much money she could saveon her insurance with one of those!!

But seriously I'd have her sleep in her own room--remind her that it wasn't there when she watched Veggie tales or when she ______, so her room is okay :thumbsup:

That's what we're gonna do, String....she did great watching her movie, she's been in & out all afternoon....so hopefully a gentle reminder will do the trick tonight. IF she mentions it at all....I sure won't be the one to bring it up!! :rollseyes:

Do like we did when we adopted Wolfie (the spider): Tell her how the gecko eats yucky bugs and keeps her safe from 'skeeters and the like. I know they're bad down there - probably even worse than here! And they're bad here!

So what happened last night?

Did you damage the poor child by forcing her to sleep in her room? Or did she get over the drama and make the decision on her own?

:rollseyes:

It was TOTALLY a non-issue!! I never mentioned it, we did the whole bedtime routine and she went to bed in her own room without protest.

Funny thing is, tho....she got up this morning & after awhile, she comes to me and says she's brave now because she's not scared in her room anymore! AND I had her get her clothes out to get dressed today (which are in the dresser she was scared of before), and she goes to pick them out saying "I'm brave now!!"

:lol: That's my girl!! :thumbsup:

Good girl! We never have any lizard problems here, just mice.