Spiders and Roly-Polies

It was 3:15 this morning. I was awakened by hysterical screaming from the girls' room. I'd already been up several times with A2, so I woke Joe up and asked him to go. I could hear J frantically gasping out her story to him between sobs. Something about spiders. It was taking a long time for him to come back. I finally went to see what the problem was. He had the lamp on and was carefully checking over her bed. I asked what the problem was. J said, "S-s-s-spiders!! (Sob!) Over th-th-there!!! (Sob! Sob!)" She pointed to the left side of her bed. She was as far as she could get to the right side without falling into A's bed. Her eyes looked extremely sleepy. I pointed to the comforter and said, "No spiders, see? They're all gone. Now you can go to sleep." She didn't look convinced, but we were very tired, so we turned off the light and went back to bed. A was sitting up watching the whole thing in wide-eyed wonder. She rarely sees her sister make such a ruckus over anything.
3:40 came with more hysterics. I didn't bother to wake up Joe this time. She insisted there were spiders in her bed and I had to change the sheets. I wasn't about to change the sheets unless there were real spiders. I turned the light back on and lifted up the comforter to show her there were no spiders anywhere in sight. Then, light off and back to bed. This time, A's eyes were open, but she pulled the covers up almost over her head so the light wouldn't be in her eyes. Her sleep is nearly as sacred as her father's and she generally gets very annoyed when it is interrupted.
4:10 produced the same result with one minor detail changed. This time it was roly-polies instead of spiders. I asked Joe what he thought I should do or say to her. My question was met by two sighs. Oh well. On my way out of my room, I grabbed a quilt I had tossed on the floor the day before. Before J could demand that I change her bedding, I took off the comforter, tossed it into the hallway and replaced it with the quilt, assuring her as I did so that there were absolutely no spiders or roly-polies in the quilt. This produced even more sobs, as J wanted her yellow comforter back. I reminded her that she had wanted me to change her bed. That seemed to fix things. Then I tried to explain that she had had a dream and it was pretend, and there were only spiders and roly-polies in her bed in her dream, but they weren't really there. Then I suggested that she try to think about something besides spiders and roly-polies. Blank stares. I had to think of something fast. Butterflies and flowers, yes that's a good idea. I suggested it. J said uncertainly, as if she wasn't sure this would really work, "I like butterflies and flowers." A piped up, "I like butterflies and flowers, too."
I said, "Good, then let's all go to sleep now and dream about butterflies and flowers." Then I went back to bed to puzzle for about 15 seconds over why J thought roly-polies were so horrible. I thought she liked them. Fifteen seconds was all the time I allocated to that. You see, I was really very, very tired.
At 4:15, the weather radio went off for a thunderstorm 30 miles south of us. =p