Monsters

      GE was very reluctant to give his crib up to his baby sister.  It was a several-week-long process to adjust him from crib life to sleeping in a big-boy bed.  Even though he had been able to climb in and out of the crib by himself, and did it freely whenever he and GD played garbage truck in the crib, he refused to climb out of it by himself in the morning and after nap.  Which was fine with me, at least he was contained.  But even after he moved permanently to his twin bed this summer he was still unable to get himself up in the morning. We didn't think much of it at first. After all, this is the child that regularly pretends to be stuck on the floor and then becomes convinced that he actually is stuck and starts screaming for help. Finally one morning it all made sense. 

       He told me that a monster came in his room every morning and woke him up. I asked him what the monster looked like and he thought a second and said. "It's purple.  It's KM's color!  It must be KM's monster!"  And ever since then he's gotten out of bed himself in the morning. 

      You see GE is a little more imaginative and not nearly as skeptical as GD. GE has seen Monsters Inc, where each child is specially matched to their monster in order to produce the most energy from screams.  We also had a book out of the library where monsters are trying out to see which monster fit a little kid the best to get the kid to sleep at night because each kid needs their own monster. GE is thoroughly convinced that each child has their own monster or monsters specifically selected for optimum scaring. 

     He was talking to GD one day soon after he started getting out of bed himself and asked him, "Do you have a monster?  I don't. Just KM's. It wakes me up in the morning."  So evidently when he realized the monster belonged to KM, he decided he shouldn't be afraid of it then. 

(It just occurred to me that maybe this purple monster wakes up GE in the morning instead of bothering KM because it is confused as to why KM has yet to move out of our room.)

     However. A few weeks later an orange monster moved in under his bed.  Because this monster belongs to him--it has to if it's orange--GE is terrified of it. It has not caused too many problems, just occasionally waking him up during the night. It was quite active the night we let him watch Rudolph, menacing around the room with the Abominable Snow Monster. GE was awake until 1AM that night. (I declared no more monster movies after that. And then proceeded to let them watch A Muppet Family Christmas, telling him "There are no monsters in this...well, actually it's mostly monsters..."  Muppet monsters do not seem to be a problem though).

     GE is doing better about the monsters now.  Recently, this orange monster has brought his buddies along, who are also orange.  But we have figured out how to handle them now. If there are any monsters causing problems at bedtime they are swiftly vanquished by Daddy throwing them over the balcony or Big Brother GD pelletting them with Nerf bullets.