Kyle and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad mommy mistake

Ok. This is prolly the worst parental mistake, oversight, screw up that I've ever committed. And it was a doozy.

I am not a Michael Jackson fan, but when a celebrity of that calibre dies you can't help but take an interest. At least I can't. And even though I've never been a MJ fan, I was singing "I Want You Back" for like 3 days.

Anyway, the day he died we were all kind of talking about it. The kids had alot of questions (what's the big deal? why was his face so weird?) So we were watching the newsclips on FoxNews online and there was a link to his Thriller video and I thought "Cool!" I hadn't seen that video in like 20 years, but I remembered bits and pieces from it...great costuming, awesome choreography...a classic. For some reason I completely forgot about how scary it was, namely the beginning part where MJ turns into a werewolf. Hmmm. I really should have remembered. Especially before I had the idea that I should play it for our kids.

I did remember that it was kind of creepy, but my memory told me it was creepy in a fun sort of way. Not in a pee your pants and have nightmares for a week sort of way. At least that is what it was like for Kyle, who was sitting on my lap and whose face was about 6 inches from the computer screen when the video got to exactly 2:24...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtyJbIOZjS8&feature=fvst

I have seen scared before. But never in my life have I seen the look of of sheer terror, and heard my child scream like that. I scrambled for the mouse as fast as I could and clicked on the X to close the screen, which of course didn't work. It seemed like an eternity as I tried to shield his eyes and carry him out of the kitchen.

And not laugh.

I know, it's terrible, but it was freaking hilarious. I felt terrible, I really did. He cried so hard that he couldn't breathe, and I began to wonder how much it's going to cost us in therapy to undo this indiscretion of epic proportions.

If there is any positive to this story at all, it is that Hope was not here to see it, as she was in Baraboo spending a few days with Brittany. I can only imagine the magnitude of her terror that we would have had to deal with because that girl knows how to obsess about things even more than I do. As it was, we only had to deal with three scared boys. I bet you can guess what their prayers were about that night as we were going to bed. "Lord, please help us to forget the horrifying images that mom showed us tonight." I'm not even kidding, that was what they prayed. Nice.

Anyone for some happy thoughts? Anyone?