Why I won't judge parents in zombie movies anymore

I warned you that it might get pretty random on here.

So, last night was pretty insane in the Irwin household. It was the first night since my parents took off to head back home (they were here a week). Jen and I were attempting to sleep train Myles. Avery wasn’t quite ready to go back to her room on her own. Oh and I’m on a stretch of insane dreams for whatever reason.

Hope that sets a tone for an altogether hilarious and stupid night.

Let’s start here: Horror content has always made me laugh for the most part. In my childhood I didn’t really want anything to do with it, but after seeing a few scary movies now I mostly just kind of laugh along at all the ridiculousness. Zombie movies in particular get me going because of the premises presented under such extreme circumstances. A close second is anything where a kid terrorizes adults. They’re so much smaller, how could they possibly do any real damage, let alone carry out murders (plural)?

Let’s go through some examples of characters I previously judged for their treatment of demonic or zombified children:

Here’s Sophia, who zombie walked right up to several adults before Rick Grimes Rick Grimes’d her. Remember when The Walking Dead was good? What a time.

Ok yeah this one hurt.

These things from “Hardhome” (Game of Thrones) were terrifying and all that but just letting them mangle you? Really?

Also, all the Chucky movies and The Ring (more on that in a bit).

But in each case, characters couldn’t do what needed to be done simply because the things that would otherwise maim/kill them are smaller. It was a narrative device I could never get behind — until last night.

So I was sliding off into sleep (always quite the task for me) and right as I felt myself drifting, I heard Myles starting to whine. Our doctor told us to give him half an hour and if he’s still screaming, then it’s time to step in. Sounded vaguely familiar given this is our second kid but Avery was such a good sleeper it hadn’t come up very often.

Doc said to let him scream for half an hour. That seems long, no? And what is she considering a scream? This is more a lazy cry, right? Wait. When did he start? 1? Crap. What time is it? Oh hey a notifi-…. NO. Go to sleep. He’ll figure it out.

Finally. He did. At about 1:30 am, he finally knocked out and I could anxiously drift into sleep. Only, hey, here come those nightmares! For some reason, the last thing I remember before literally jumping out of bed and yelling was being lowered into a pit of snakes while strapped to a gurney. I could feel myself getting bitten and everything. Makes me cringe now just thinking about it.

After chuckling at the fact that I was physically standing five feet or so from my bed, I crawled back under the covers and finally started to drift back to sleep when, there at the end of our bed, stands Avery — all two foot-something of her, with her thick brown hair draped over her face, backlit by moonlight coming through our bedroom windows. It was a scene directly from The Ring, or some shit.

And this is where I’ll say I won’t judge those parents from horror movies any longer. Here I was, half asleep yet fully convinced there is a demon contorting herself to climb into my bed and I was welcoming her with literal open arms because she was my daughter.

So that narrative device I used to mock? Well, turns out I’m also a softy with tiny zombies. But that’s the whole point, isn’t it? Only people with that kind of relationship with a child can relate to those moments and, boy, if you can, you really, really can.

What’s the point of all this? Honestly, no idea. It was something I found funny at three in the morning and am now pot committed having written 600 words or so about it. I’d love to say this was some grand metaphor of the sliding scale of practicality even in the literal worst situations imaginable because of the emotional bonds forever forged in our hearts with children but honestly, it was something I was literally laughing at as my cursed, demonic zombie child crawled into my arms.

Hey, much like I apparently signed up for willingly getting shredded by my zombie children one day, you chose this subscription life. (Hilariously, as I finished editing this, Myles starting crying again. Round two, anyone?)