Someday, there will be a therapy appointment just for this

Last night we played Uno!® as a family before bed. The parental goal was to have Max win a couple rounds to boost his ego and encourage him to continue playing (those who have five year old children are well aware of this essential strategy to avoid meltdowns during "fun time"). Well, I should say one of us made a concerted effort to have Max win a game, someone seemed to be out for blood after I won the first game. As it turned out, Ron won one and I won one, by the end of playtime, Max had still not come up with a win. Teeth were brushed, stories were read, water was given, and Max went to bed.

About 9:30, while Ron and I were watching a movie, we heard "the cry;" the one that tells us Max is having a night terror. Night terrors are similar to nightmares, but they usually occur in children as a way to work through an emotion, such as fear instead of replaying or creating a scary event. The child often does not remember what caused the terror, and often will not even recall they had one. Our son has experienced night terrors for about two years now and we have become accustomed to dealing with them. However, since the previous night terror in a befouled toybox and a very confused boy with pants around his ankles, we rushed into his room to see what was wrong.

He was in his bed, shaking and calling out for us and then he started saying "I'm scared, I'm scared!" We did our usual reassuring thing, rubbing his back, telling him he was ok. When we asked him what he was scared of, he yelled "GREEN OR 7! GREEN OR 7!" and then buried his face in my chest, sobbing. Our poor son was dreaming about some terrifying alternate universe where Uno cards come to life and demand "green or 7!"

5 minutes later, he settled down and went back to sleep, leaving him with no memory of the experience and only this story to remember the night Uno!® came calling in his dreams.