The Imagination of a 3 Year Old

I am always astounded at how imaginative my dear little 3 year old is getting. I love to watch her playing with her dolls or princesses, or wandering around the backyard her mind oblivious to everything else that is going on around her. But as wonderful as an imagination is during the day, it is a different thing entirely at night. I would say that Riley is definitely a bit of a nervous Nelly (wonder where she gets that from). Some examples would be - she does not want to go upstairs by herself, she runs and hides when she hears a sudden noise, she often comes crying if another child tells her he is going to "get her", she hates the dark and doesn't ever want to be alone. But as tentative and scared as she often gets, she is usually very good at going to bed at night, with the odd rare occasion when she puts up a fuss. Well, tonight was one of those rare occasions. Tonight she was SCARED. A very real kind of scared, where she looked into my eyes with that look of desperation, insisting that I absolutely could not leave her. Not wanting to just dismiss her fears, I decided to crawl in beside her and I asked her what she was scared of. She said that the big, tall, dark shadow man who comes into her room every night was going to get her tonight. That he "poufs" people and they go away and you never see them again. OK. No wonder she is scared - she had me scared (not that that is hard to do, especially when Kris is out). So what do you say - I tried to explain shadows that we were seeing - but she insisted that that wasn't it, but that he was coming, he always comes.Then she said "you know mommy, I bet you it is just a dream, and that he is not real" I agreed (wondering why I didn't just think to say that). Then in her sweetest tiniest voice she said. "mommy, please just stay with me, I need you to listen to me, I am just little, but kind of big at the same time, but still little, so I am not very good at being by myself. I need you to help me to go to sleep because I want to be a good girl so that I can go to The Little Gym in the morning". Broke my heart, so I stayed beside her. She fell asleep in about 2.2 seconds.