Our sensitive kid

I had Wednesday and Thursday off this week, and one of those nights Rachel came downstairs (at around 10:30) and said she'd had a nightmare and couldn't sleep. "What was the nightmare about?" I told her as I carried her up the stairs. "It was so bad, I don't want to tell you," she replied. "It was about blood."

When I put her into bed, she said, "Mama, can you sing to me?" "Sure," I said, and then I proceeded to sing "Michael Row the Boat Ashore," "Sabbath Prayer," and "Sunrise, Sunset."

By the end of "Sunrise, Sunset," she was sobbing. "What's the matter, sweetie?" I asked. She wouldn't say, and then finally she blurted out, "I'm afraid that if I leave to go away to college, you'll move somewhere else, and you'll like it so much there that you'll never come back, and I'll be ALL ALONE!"

"Sweetie," I said. "You may find that when it's time for college, you won't WANT to live close to Mommy and Daddy. You'll want to live far away."

She sobbed even harder.

"Sweetie, there are lots of good colleges around here," I said. "You can go to the University of Virginia -- that's only three hours away and we can visit you every weekend! And there's the University of Maryland, and other places."

"I want to go to the college nearest to where you and Daddy are," she said. I told her that would be fine, if that's what she wanted to do.

Clearly, I need to stop emphasizing that someday, she'll want to be as far away from us as possible. And I REALLY need to stop singing songs from "Fiddler on the Roof."