"Scary! Scary!"
I rush in. "What's wrong!"
"I hear noises!" she says.
I ask, "What noises?"
She makes deep, heaving, guttural sounds to imitate the noise she heard.
I lie down next to her and quietly shush her, then listen intently for what I suspect to be the usual plumbing noises from our three-story condo building, or maybe traffic or animal sounds from outside her window.
I hear many sounds, but it's not until she repeats her asthmatic, Darth Vader-like tones that I realize that she is imitating me snoring. I am the one who was making the scary breathing noises.
"You were making the noises, Daddy?"
"Yes, I was snoring."
"Haha, you're silly, Daddy. Please don't make those noises again."
"Ok, honey. I won't. Sweet dreams."
So now I'm wondering if Uncle Henry is to blame for Dorothy's phobia of lions, tigers, and bears. Poor Dorothy, night after night, cowering under her blankets fretting about scary, beastly breathing noises echoing through the walls, while Uncle Henry is obliviously snoring up a storm.
Oh my.
