Monster(s) in my house.

Monster is afraid of monsters. Ironic? Maybe. Super fun and silly? Not one bit.

I don't know when it happened, or why, but he started talking about "monsters" six months ago or so. It started with a dragon. One day he ran, screaming from his room and when I went to investigate with him he said there was a dragon outside his window. We looked, he freaked out and cried, and I was left wondering if his imagination had gotten the better of him, or if something had flown by and scared the pants off him.

Either way the whole monster debacle is payback, I just know it. I am going to tell you a secret, once when I was working in a daycare the heater vent kicked on and started making noise. One little boy, who always took forever in the bathroom jumped and asked what the noise was. Me being frustrated, and not thinking it through, told him it was a monster. The poor boy started refusing to go in the bathroom at all. I overheard his mom asking another staff member about monsters the next week, and I totally avoided her and never explained his sudden aversion to bathrooms. If I ever bump into him I will have to apologize, but for now we will just continue to keep it a secret and keep our fingers crossed it didn't ruin his bathroom trips for life!

My monster, on the other hand, came up with his fear on his own as far as I know. He wont go in a dark room, he wont go in a room if he has to open the door first, and he wakes up screaming at night after talking about monsters during the day.

I have tried a couple solutions. First, an idea from a friend, I told him our dog ate monsters, so he was totally safe because she eats them all up. But then we had to put our dog down this summer so the monsters started appearing again. So we started shooting them. He has several play guns and runs around shouting "There's one! Pew! I got 'em!"

Then today I came up with my "best" idea yet! He went to wash his hands in the dark bathroom which had the door closed. I heard him open the door and call out "Hello?" and then he ran back to me and asked me to come with him. When I opened the door and turned on the light I screamed "AARRRRGHHGHGH!!!". Monster jumped and said "Don't DO that!!". And then I explained:

"If you yell at the monsters they will all run away. They don't like yelling!".

And now, Monster is running around the house, yelling at the top of his lungs to scare all the monsters away. Yup. Best idea ever.

Sleep Wars: A New Hope

Don't judge.  Our bedtime routine of late has involved bath time before dinner, dinner extremely late, and then switching the TV from cartoons to episodes of whatever sitcom Daddy Cakes and I are watching.  And then we wait.  Until the little darlings conk out from exhaustion of repeating how very much they would like to watch their shows again. 

It has become such a habit recently to let them fall asleep in front of the TV that I decided we needed a change.  I was hopeful, excited even, to go back to our old  dinner-bath-jammies-story-and straight to bed routine.  So last night we implemented it.  We even had dinner early.  And even though Monster had a nap and Monkey had had two naps, they both just had a long and tiring weekend.

Daddy Cakes took Monkey to the living room, turned off the lights and snuggled down on the couch; the common bedtime routine they formed when we night-weaned a few months back.  Monster finished his bath, picked out pj's and climbed into bed.  I sang our goodnight song, tucked him in and settled into the rocking chair, smug with the knowledge that I just knew he was going to fall asleep easily because we followed the tried and true bedtime ritual.

First he asked for a song.  I sang "Rock-A-Bye Baby" off key.  "I LIKE dat song!" He exclaimed, which had me stiffling giggles and wondering if he was thinking of his brother.

Next he asked for train stories.  I have invented two train stories I tell on nights when he is not very tired.  Feeling smug again, I thought the train who visits the train's house in the woods and eats all the poridge would be enough to have him dreaming sweet train dreams and me tucked into bed in mere minutes.  (Ok, so my train stories are not super original.)

No luck.  After that he asked for more songs, then our next train story which involves a hungry train, colors, fruit, and many train friends.  It is an original, and maybe someday I will share it.

By this time I was frustrated.  He was supposed to be asleep and me snuggled up sawing my own logs.  I told him he needed to go to sleep.  And then the fake snoring started.

"Hooooooonnnkkk-shhhhhhheeeeewwww" Monster repeated over and over.

Then he asked for more songs.  He asked to get out of bed.  He pretend snored some more.

And then.  Silence.  I peeked out of one eye and turned my head a fraction of an inch...and whether he had been asleep or not I invoked the next question "Mommy?"  I decided not to respond.

Silence.

"Mommy?"

Silence.

"Mommy?"

"What?!?!"

"Where is Daddy? I want daddy to put me to sleep!"

"Daddy is putting Monkey to sleep in the living room."

"I want to go to sleep in da libing room!"

"No! Go to sleep or I have to leave you."

Silence.

"HOOOOONNNKKKKK SHHHEEEEWWW, HOOOOOOnnnnkkkk sshhheeewww, hhooonnk sheew.."

Silence.

"hooonnnnkkkk shhhhhh..."  And he was asleep. Complete with one leg hanging off the side of the bunk bed, his blanket most the way on the floor, and his head face turned toward me.

(Sigh) life is never dull in our house. :)