Volcano

A couple weeks ago, while Skyler was playing on the computer, Josh thought he'd have a chance to pick a movie he wanted to watch on Netflix. I joked with him that Sky would come over as soon as he heard it, but Josh thought he was too busy on the computer. So Josh gets looking through his options and decides to watch "Volcano". I had never heard of it so I asked him if it was going to be an ok movie for Skyler to watch when he ditched the computer. Josh's opinion was since Sky can handle "Transformers" he should be fine with this one. I decided to trust his judgement since he knew the movie and I didn't. As I knew would happen it only took Skyler maybe 5 minutes before he was going back and forth between the movie and the computer. After about 15 minutes of that we told him he had to make a choice and only do one. He chose to watch the movie and sat down on the couch next to me. For those who haven't seen the movie, it doesn't take long before the natural disasters begin and things get destroyed. There are earthquakes, and fast moving lava from the volcano that has been just chilling underneath the city. It doesn't show any deaths of people or anything, just the ground opening up and buildings falling. People running around scared, things on fire. When Skyler likes a movie he will sit very still and he zones in. So it took me and Josh a little too long to realize he wasn't being so still because he was enjoying the movie. In fact we noticed about the same time that he was scooting closer to me and starting to turn away from the TV. Josh asked him if he was ok, and at that point Sky was almost in tears. I pulled him into my lap and told Josh to stop the movie. It took a few minutes to get Sky to talk, and even then he didn't say much. But it was obvious the movie had scared him pretty good. So we told him it was just a movie and pretend and not to worry. We let him pick a kid movie to watch and got him in a better mood so he could go to bed. Skyler never said anything more about the movie or being scared that night. Well, in the weeks since, Skyler has randomly brought up earthquakes. Out of nowhere he'll ask a question about them. Or he'll tell you a theory he has about them. He'll repeat things to make sure he understands what I've told him. One night at bedtime, I don't remember how the conversation got started, but I ended up telling him what we'd do if there was an earthquake. He thought we would run outside like the people in the movie did. I explained we'd probably stand in one of the bedroom doorways. So he asks how we would get away from the lava if we are inside. I had not realized he thought earthquakes and lava came together. So then I had to explain the different situations of the two. Skyler has been very curious, but never has he seemed scared when we are talking about it. Until this Monday afternoon. My parents have a car parked in their driveway that we are thinking about fixing up to drive. So Skyler and I run outside so I can get some info for pricing parts. Skyler was so excited to get to climb in the dark red car. I open the glove box and notice that some sort of liquid has leake just a little into it. I tell Sky about it as i'm trying to wipe it up. With in minutes, he has decided he wants out of the car and it pushing me out and closing the door. He wouldn't tell me why until we were inside. He told me he thought whatever was leaking could hurt us so he didn't want to be by it since he didn't know what it was. I explain to him it wasn't anyting bad that could hurt us. But he kept snuggling into me and I could tell me reasoning wasn't helping. It took another couple minutes before he would talk to me again. This time he started relating the liquid to earthquakes somehow. And he starts stressing about big buildings falling down on houses and parks and wanting to know what we would do then. This little boy is so my child. These are the dumb sort of things I loose sleep over at night. And now my little boy is starting to do it at 4 1/2. All I could think of to do at this point was to tell Sky when he feels this scared or worried he should pray to Heavenly Father and ask for help to not be scared. His response, what's if the earthquake is too loud and He can't hear me? How sad!!! I could not convince him that it would never be too loud for a prayer to be heard. I even suggested singing a primary song. But he says he won't be able to think of any. We finally resolved some of his problems by making sure he knew he can always come to me, even during the night and I would pray or sing with him. But seriously! He's 4 and that dumb movie has him so scared! I think Josh has learned his lesson to be careful what he watches. And I have learned my lesson to really put my foot down about movies when I don't think they will be ok. Now we just hope Sky will get over this soon and not loose sleep over his worries.