Background: Matthew doesn’t like the taste of crab (we eat them Chinese-style, steaming them while still alive). But we haven’t eaten crab for quite a while — maybe a few weeks.

So last night in the middle of the night I hear these shrieks coming from outside our room. I open the door and hear Matthew coming out of his room sobbing and shrieking. It’s not something that happens often and usually only if he has a very rare bedwetting accident. So I calmed him down as he was blubbering away, “There’s a ??? in my room! There’s a ??? in my room!” I muzzled him a bit so he wouldn’t wake the other kids up and managed to say, “There’s a WHAT in your room?” His response: “A CRAB.”

In case you’re wondering, we don’t live near crab-infested waters. So I was pretty certain he’d had a scary dream, albeit a strange one.

“Okay, let’s go see,” I said, as I led him into his room and turning on the light. He was still very cautious as I carried him and peeked around the now well-lit room. “Nothing, you see? Where was the crab?” Mostly calmed but still a bit afraid, he said, “On the wall…” as he looked around obviously not sure but thinking it had to be somewhere!

So I took him to the spare room and laid him down to sleep and he went back to sleep.

In the morning, I asked him if it was a live crab: “Was the crab dead or alive?” He said, “It was in a box, cooked. Up top (pointing to the shelf near the top of the raised ceiling in his room)! And it fell out onto my bed.”

Okay, a live crab, I can sympathize and comprehend. But who dreams of a cooked crab in a box coming out and landing on your bed?!?!?! What a goofy kid.