Andy's Monsters

Andy is terrified of monsters. For example, if he's in his room playing on the train table and hears neighbor stomp noises from upstairs, he'll yell, "monsters come" and run in to find me with eyes wide and terrified. To alleviate Andy's terror, we just tell Nicky to scare the monsters away. She runs into the back room and from her gullet releases a scream that couldn't be more frightening if it came from the Banshee ghost herself. Andy, satisfied, then saunters back in and continues with whatever he was doing.

On a side note, what really makes Jeff laugh is when Andy makes a screaming attempt to scare monsters. He is such a mild and soft spoken boy and is scream reflects his manner. When compared with his sister, the whispered, "ahhahah" he conjures is hilarious.

This might qualify me for child abuser status, but I've played the monster card to get Andy to lay down by me for story time at night. If he is acting fussy and doesn't want to go to bed, I tell him I hear monsters. He quickly cuddles up, holds still, and soon becomes tired enough to go to bed. I really shouldn't admit that. I sound horrible. Ok, I'll stop doing it.

Yesterday, a baby growled in Sacrament meeting. Andy decided it sounded enough like a monster to warrant dropping his Cheerios and yelling out whilst climbing in my lap, "Momma hold you!"

I've asked myself how Andy found out about monsters. It's not something I've ever discussed with him. I went looking through our literature and came across the culprit.


To me these cartoon creatures look innocuous enough. Though to Andy, I imagine on some level he realized those claws aren't meant for picking apples. And what's with those devilish horns? I can see how this book might be very scary to a little guy.

We may have to lay off reading about wild things for awhile even though it is one of Andy's favorites. On the plus side, Andy has a big sister that doesn't mind scaring monsters away and protecting him in the dark as long as her lava glitter night light is on.