Last night I went up to bed, and just as I crawled under the covers I heard screaming from the boy’s room.

I ran down the hall to find him quaking in his bed, half-awake.

I climbed into his bed and held him.  “What’s wrong? Did you have a bad dream?”

His head just nodded, small movements and fast.

“What was the dream about?” I asked.

He shook his head from side to side, and covered his mouth with his hands.

“You couldn’t breathe? Oh, honey that’s–” I started, but then saw he was shaking his head “no.”

“What was it?” I asked again.  I was getting worried that it was something bad involving ME, and that’s why he couldn’t tell me.

“I couldn’t,” he began.  “I couldn’t…”

“You couldn’t what?”

“I….I couldn’t get all the cereal out of the cereal box.”

“Oh, honey, I think that’ll be okay.” I patted him on the back, he rolled over and went back to sleep.

Another crisis averted.