Five Nights at Freddy's

 

The other day I walked past the rooms at the end of the hall.  Isaac's room, Taylor's room and the bathroom are all there.  I noticed a very bad smell.  Of course, I have 2 boys at home and I know their bathroom habits are suspect so I went in and cleaned the bathroom.  I usually make the boys clean up the horrible nastiness of their own making but I had people coming over and needed it to be a good clean, not a good enough clean.  Anyway, I thought that the problem had been solved until I walked past the area again later that night.  It still smelled horrible.  Well, Taylor is obviously gone so that wasn't the source this time.  I walked into Isaac's room but there wasn't an obvious source there either.  I asked Isaac about it.  He said that there was a rabbit in his classroom at school and he sits right next to it.  OK, I guess it kind of does smell like a dirty rabbit.  I immediately packed up his laundry basket and put all the clothes into the washer.  We had a talk about loving the rabbit but not LOVING the rabbit.  I thought that the problem was solved.  In the morning I just about got knocked over when I walked past the room.  Luckily, it was a Saturday so Isaac could spend all day figuring out why his room smelled so bad.  "Look," I said, "you need to go into your room and figure out what is making that awful smell and fix it."  He came back a few minutes later.  I asked him if he had figured out the problem.  He told me that he had and he had fixed it.  Well, what was that terrible smell?  "I peed in the garbage can."  What?!!!!  I am completely proud of my parenting at this point because what I really wanted to do was punch him in the nose and shake him silly.  Why in the heck would you pee in your garbage can?  Well, I was too scared to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night.

Turns out that he had been playing with some friends at school who were playing a game called Five Nights at Freddy's. I had never heard of it so I looked it up later.  It is a horror game made for a computer and ipad.  It got really great reviews for being a scare your pants off type of game.  Obviously not appropriate for kids.  Clearly some parents do not monitor the games their kids are playing, but I digress. Anyway, the kids are not allowed to bring electronics to school so they were not playing the actual game at recess.  They were just pretending that the characters from the game were hiding around the playground.  This scared Isaac so much that he could not even go to the bathroom (right next to his room) in the dark.  I actually felt bad for the kid.  I hugged him. (I am proud of the things I didn't do, one of which is laugh)  We talked about strategies for dealing with fear, turn on the lights, call for help, say a prayer.  He looked like he felt better.  Just before he went off to play I asked him how he took care of the garbage can.  "I put it in Taylor's room."  ARRRRGGG!!!!!