On the way to school I decided to question him about his dream.  What is a croakwatcher?  Is it a frog?  Is it a cockroach?  How many eyes?  How many legs?  What colour?  How big?

His answers were not forthcoming, but what he did share was that it had lots (held up five fingers) of legs, one eye, it was brown, it was massive (held out his arms as far as they would go) and it wanted to eat him.  The five year old, feeling this wasn’t exciting enough, managed to convince him it had a nose on it’s bottom.  I’m not so sure.

After school they sat on the swings in the garden.  The 3 year old kept looking over his shoulder suspiciously.  I asked what he was looking at  … he said “That’s where the Croakwatcher lives” … and I do believe the sky got darker.

The next evening I went to the village pre-school fundraiser where I bought Christmas cards (You did what?  Yes, I know) and ate cake.  When I got home, I walked up the path to our front door where there are some flower pots.

Out from behind one of the pots jumped THE BIGGEST toad I ever did see.  Seriously, I thought it was going to take me hostage and demand my car keys.  After squealing and notifying the husband who looked completely unimpressed by my ‘It was a fecking HUGE toad story’ (whilst holding out my arms as far as they would go) I started thinking that perhaps this was in fact a lesser spotted Croakwatcher.

I was so pleased with myself.  The next morning I found a picture of a toad and, in the style of a detective questioning her suspect, casually threw the picture in front of the 3 year old at breakfast  … “Did it look like this?” I demanded whilst shoving his face in his Cheerios for extra effect.  He told me it was not.  But proceeded to tell me it was MASSIVE and it had one eye and it wanted to eat him.  ”That’s old news” I said.

On Friday morning I woke feeling slightly disturbed, as my nightmare came back to me I realised I had dreamt about the Croakwatcher.  Could I describe it to you?  No, but it’s a scary mofo … even now, on Friday evening I’m wondering where the Croakwatcher is. … and no, I don’t think it had a nose on it’s bottom.

As a child I had a recurring dream about being in a spaceship, lost in space.  I once woke up running down the stairs from a giant spider.  As an adult I still dream every night, a few years ago I had what I would consider a nightmare when I dreamt about Martin Clunes naked. 

Once a month I leap up, scrabble across my sleeping husband and turn on the bedroom light and then race back to bed to remove all the spiders. The husband invariably wakes up as I commando roll across him and is blinded by the light.  I wake up knelt in bright light shooing the spiders and wondering what on earth I am doing. It is most confusing.

It seems to be hereditary …

The 3 year old has been ill over the weekend. A high temperature and stomach ache have made him sleepy and hot. When the medicine kicks in he’s fine, but the rest of the time he is just not himself. Usually a heavy sleeper, complete with old man snoring, he has been waking in the night, hallucinating about witches in his bedroom, bees on his pillow and dogs running through his bed. I had to tell the witch to go away, shoo the bees from his pillow and tell the dog to go back to bed.

The 5 year old has frequent night terrors.  Not wanting to feel left out was screaming out on Sunday night … ’Stop it!’, ‘Leave me alone!’, ‘Go away!’ to the night visitors in her dreams. I went in to her and she sat up with glazed eyes staring right through me, still asleep and told me she wanted me to stay. Then she wanted me to go. Then when I got into bed she wanted me again. She was still asleep.

I never wake her, just reassure her, try to settle her back down. On Monday I talked to her about spending the following day with Daddy and going on the train at which point she sat up again, eyes so dark and shouted ‘I KNOW THAT, I KNOW I AM GOING ON A TRAIN’ and pushed me away.

I don’t like the glazed look, the possessed, nothing there look. The following morning she remembers nothing.

‘The dream catcher is not working’ she said to me this morning.

She’s right.

Last night the 2 year old was playing up after I’d put him to bed. I went into his room and told him it was definitely time to be going to sleep and stop throwing his rugby ball across the room. He pointed over my shoulder into the darkness and just said ‘Man’.

Today he was out on his bike, on his own, in the garden and my husband heard him say ‘No Man’.

Now, is it just coincidence that they both see ‘The Man’? Are my children conspiring to have me committed to an institution for the terminally bewildered or was the 2 year old really playing rugby with ‘The Man’ last night and riding pillion with him in the garden today?