Spiderman Is Spooky

Lyra got a Spiderman action figure from one of her classmates for his birthday*. The other day, as I was tidying her dresser top, she wanted to make sure the Spiderman remained tucked behind something else and facing in the opposite direction. "I don't like him looking at me at night." Makes sense. Especially because she is pretty unaware of Spiderman. I think she knows who he is. Maybe she's seen one of the movies. And if you're only marginally aware of Spiderman, on the surface he's a pretty creepy looking guy. I asked her why, if he's so creepy, don't we give him away. But no. She's in her Pack Rat phase these day and has trouble even throwing away a used piece of dental floss (I blame her father).
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A couple of weeks earlier, she had asked me for a new nightlight. She didn't like the one that I had purchased a few months ago for her from Ikea. His name is Spoka (sounds a lot like spooky to me). As you can see, this little fellow would give any kid the creeps. I don't know why this didn't occur to me when I bought it. I thought it was cute. I asked her if we could give it away. But no. Instead she wants to have it sitting on her table, facing away from her, and kept off. She also didn't like the fact that the light was bright enough to cast shadows of other items in the room onto the walls.
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Back home, Lyra never used a nightlight. But here, the curtains in her room have the blackout lining and it's so dark that she can't see to go to the bathroom in the night. At home, there's a streetlight right out her window that kept the room reasonably bright. I've learned from this never to order curtains with blackout lining for her again.
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She also has two toys that she keeps shoved in the bottom of a cloth bag. Again, her reasoning is that they are creepy and she doesn't want them looking at her during the night. One is a character from the Nightmare Before Christmas. You pull its head off (it's attached to a string) and when the string recoils the body of the toy vibrates. At least it doesn't scream. I bought it for her a long time ago. It kept her entertained in the stroller. At the time I thought it was a little macabre, but she was too young to know. The other is a little Happy Meal (Lyra has learned to call them Sad Meals, thanks to Baba) treat that is a tiny green pirate skeleton. I think it was a promotion for one of the Pirates of the Carribean movies. Again, she refuses to part with either of these two guys. They remain stuffed at the bottom of a cloth bag only to be brought out when the lights are on.
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As a child (even as a teen), I remember being spooked in the night. It's odd to think of Lyra laying there in her bed feeling a little creeped out by what she's seeing and remembering when I had the same feelings myself. I just want to crawl into bed with her and give her a cuddle. But she seems remakably matter-of-fact about it. She isn't coming up to our room all creeped out in the middle of the night. So, for now, she isn't asking for comfort - she just wants to make sure these characters are suitably shielded from her view.
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In the meantime, if I can convince her that someone out there would REALLY LOVE a spiderman action figure, I'm she would give it up. Any takers?

* We were surprised that many of the families in Lyra's school bring gifts for all the children in the school to celebrate their child's birthday. As Russell likes to say, "This tradition ended with us." We have a remarkable array of truly pointless clutter as a result. Will Lyra let me give it away? What do you think.