Monsters Eat You!

Sam's not even two, and I've already made him scared of monsters! What kind of mother am I?

It all began about 3 weeks ago. I was in the kitchen making dinner and Sam was playing near the refrigerator. He kept trying to squeeze his little self into the space between the wall and the fridge. You know that tiny space that's hard to clean and can be scary at times because you're not sure what's fallen between there? Anyway, he kept trying to shimmy in there and as a result he kept getting stuck. His arm or leg would get jammed, resulting in crying, resulting in me having to stop what I was doing every 5-10 seconds to help him out. Needless to say this became a little frustrating fairly quickly. In a lazy attempt to stop his behavior, I looked at him and said, "Sam, you do NOT want to get stuck by the fridge! That's where the monsters live and what if they got you?"

Now, I have absolutely NO idea where this little lie came from; nor did I think that my little boy had any idea what monsters were. I soon found out just how wrong I was. As soon as the word "monsters" escaped my lips, Sam came running to me. I now had him hanging on my legs and asking to be held; which was much worse than before! My little plan had backfired.

Sam was extra cautious the rest of that day. Each time he had to walk by the kitchen he would peer carefully around the corner, checking for monsters I assume. And when Eric got home he immediately starting talking about monsters. Then he came up with this little statement, "Monsters eat you!" What? Where did he learn that? He kept saying it over and over! What had I done??

Eric and I have since explained to Sam that monsters are not real creatures, but are rather just made up. I don't know that he really understood much of this conversation. So, instead we've tried to associate all monsters with Cookie Monster. So now Sam says "Monsters eat you and cookies." Hmmm...

I was hopeful that this 'monster' phase would pass while we were out of town and away from our refrigerator. But then in Virgin Gorda we saw some HUGE lobsters. I'm talking LARGE! Sam was enthralled with them, and upon hearing that they were called 'lobsters' he immediately associated them with 'monsters!' "Monsters eat you. Monsters eat you...." was all he could think.

And even today, while at the grocery store we passed the lobster tank, and little Sam piped up, "Momma, monsters! Monsters eat you!"

What's a mom to do?


Untitled from docktercrew on Vimeo.