Saving Up For Future Therapy One Penny At A Time

Children are very funny creatures.

Both of mine are still quite young (5 and 1, for those keeping track), and the oldest, Bug, is showing an excellent imagination in things that May Or May Not Be Real.

This suits our family atmosphere fairly perfectly, we love monsters and creepy of all shapes and sizes and are pleased to see this carry onto our children.

He likes to make up monster stories at bedtime and is constantly curious about why their mothers let them run about at night. I have attempted to explain that monsters just prefer to sleep during the day, but he remains unconvinced this is the case.

In Bug Land, there are dozens of monster children running about at midnight with their monster Mamas hot on their trail, eager to put them into time-out. (As a note to other parents out there, I highly recommend My Monster Mama Loves Me So by Laura Leuck.)

Cut to yesterday at roughly noon.

A high-pitched scream breaks into my serene Google Reader check and interrupts baby Lyn Hippo's studious lunchtime nom-nomming (comparable to a massacre of epic proportions). I hear the sliding glass door slam determinedly closed and Bug announce, with no small amount of panic, that they're going to get inside and get us. He proceeds to lock the back door, put the bar down and close the curtains.

I half-expect him to run to the sewing machine to craft black-out curtains or run to the kitchen and arm himself.

I'm trying not to snicker, because I am horrible and haven't ever heard such a panicked, high-toned scream from my son. He's yanking me to the back door, pulling the curtain aside a mere half an inch to stab at the glass in a frantic manner. When I attempt to open the door, he dives for the couch and crawls up to safety, nearly hyperventilating and informing me once more they're going to get in.

The look I get from him makes it clear that in the afterlife, he is going to be blaming me.

"What's going to get in, Bug? I don't see anything."

"The slug, Mama. The SLUG."

". . . what slug?"

His mother's death-inviting blindness trumps fear, and he scrambles off the couch and grabs my hand tightly, braving the potential slaughter and pulling me towards the grass.

"THIS slug," he says, pointing into the grass before climbing up for safety.

The Slug

Bug's never really shown a fear of other bugs/insects/creepy crawlies before, so I frowned down at the slug in question, hefting him higher on my hip as I tried to figure out if this breed had mutated teeth or, perhaps, was brandishing a weapon of some sort. Perhaps it had stolen his Capri Sun and was mocking him with the straw.

". . . it's just a slug, buddy," I told him ruefully, patting his back and heading back to the patio after placing the threat level at Oscar.

"Mom," Bug insisted, expression clear in his belief that he was being raised by That Teenage Girl in the horror movies. You know, the one still wearing her heels in the forest and keeps looking over her shoulder. "Like Slither. It starts with one."

In Bug Land:

=

And, because I am that parent, I give him a solemn look and reply, "You're right. It does."


Never let it be said my children won't be prepared for the invasion.