There are No Monsters in This House

In the past few months, Beatrix has developed a complicated relationship toward Monsters. Like my big sister, Heather, who loved volcanoes and would bring home loads of books picturing explosions and decimation but who also hid them in the bottom of her closet at night, Bea both adores and fears Monsters. She jumps at books depicting anything with fur or horns or a scary or dopey (Jim Henson variety) face; she loves the book A World Full of Monsters, that shows that in the 'olden days,' monsters were plentiful but now only fix and clean things at night (Martin has major issues with this book as he says it reads like social commentary).

The other day Bea got a simperingly sweet look on her face and said, "Aw. Monsters best friend to me." Pit this against her panicked dive into pillows in the Play Room and the trembling that accompanied "I scared, Mommy. Monsters!" I watched her run into a room and pause, whispering to herself in a somewhat unsure voice, "No monsters!"

Tonight some friends kept our children so Martin and I could cram unbelievably big pieces of Spider Roll soaked in soy sauce and wasabi paste into our mouths. Bea came home freshly bathed and in her little friend's pyjamas. As soon as we stood in our front hallway, she requested that I remove her p.j. shirt, which sported a picture of a T-Rex. No monsters!

Before bed, she mentioned monsters again. Now, some parents may use Reason or a big can of Monster-Off to comfort their children, but Bea and I have together developed a song. If you have monster problems in your house or in YOUR HEAD, you can also employ this little ditty, adapting it to your needs, of course.

Chorus:
There are no monsters in this house!
There are no monsters in this house!
There may be a tiny mouse,
but there are no monsters in this house!

Verse 1:
There is a Beatrix in this house.
There is an Elspeth in this house.
There is a Merry in this house.
But there-are-no-monsters-in-this-house!

Repeat chorus.
Add verses as needed.
Sing until heart palpitations are less insistent and fear is less quivery and sleep is. . .imminent.

Got to share: a poem, Postscript, about leaving Kenya, accepted by The MacGuffin this morning. Also, my last column in the Observer-Reporter (click on geranium at right)may finally cast some clarity on your next career move. It helps to live in a sunny, warm climate, I expect, though our hot dog guy manages just fine in PA. See. . .if you can catch the grammatical error I overlooked as well as the tricky idiom (misplacing, mistaking, grasping for idioms runs in my family). Martin has given me plenty of roughing up over the O-R one, though I don't think it's as bad as my mother announcing that "some guy was going to sue another guy until his pants fell down." Mom, I know you told me not to tell anyone you said that, but the statue of limitations is up.