The Riddle of the Oogie Mousie

Part III

The final chapter to this saga.

Last year about this time, my then 18 month-old LittleBird went through what we call her "oogie mousie" phase.

Now, LittleBird has always been very verbal for her age. For a good two weeks or so she went on and on (and on) about the "oogie mousie". She would get very worked up about it--to the point of being distraught.

We asked to tell us where she saw the oogie mousie, but she would just whine and start to cry. We were never able to figure it out, and we finally got kind of pissed about it and just kept telling her that there was no oogie mousie.

After the incident this past weekend, we started to put two and two together. Maybe she really had seem something last year, but just did not have the ability to tell us where?

Here is where the mommy guilt kicks in. All this time we have been telling her there is no such thing as an oogie mousie, and maybe there really was?

So I asked her. Do you remember the oogie mousie?

She has not talked about it for a year, but her face clouded over the minute I asked her. I asked where she had seen it--she told me it had been cooking in the kitchen. Then she told me it had been going peepee on the potty in the bathroom.

So much for that.

I do believe she saw something, but where and how we will never know. I do feel badly that we eventually brushed her off. At the time it was the only way to get her past all the scary feelings and help her deal with her fear. Not one of my finer parenting moments, but you do the best you can at the time and hope that your children will either forgive you or forget it ever happened.

Either way, it solves the riddle.