eff'n monsters

About 2am this morning I woke up to the sound of my son screaming for me. Since I have 4 yrs experience in his parental boot-camp, I was on my feet and in his room in 5 seconds flat. He was scared and crying. He was trembling and asking if he could sleep with me. "What's wrong?" I asked. "I'm scared. There's monsters!", he said as his eyes darted around the room. It was raining and windy last night and even I woke up a few times hearing stuff hitting the side of the house. So I talked to him for a little bit. I told him that monsters are not real. Then I told him again. He was not budging. No matter how many times/ways I told him that monsters are just pretend, he insisted equally as hard that they were, in fact, very real and I was a moron for not realizing this! I suddenly had a flash back of when I was a kid. I was scared of the dark. My sister and I shared a room and she couldn't sleep with too much light shining in the room so each night it was a battle of how far we would leave the door open. If my memory serves correctly, my Dad took the door off our closet because I was so terribly afraid of what might be behind it.There was also the time my mom let me watch King Kong with her. I had nightmares for days. It was very real to me. Even though I knew it was "just a dream" it did not help me fear it any less.
In that moment I snatched him up out of bed. "C'mon! Let's go!" I command. I heard his little feet following close behind me down the hall into the kitchen. I grabbed the sprayer that I use to water the plants. "WE are going to make a...... monster potion!!" His eyes got really big and he said "YEAH! Monster stuff." So I open up the cabinets and pretend to put all sorts of stuff in the spray bottle. Then I pulled out this tiny bottle of scented oil that we got from the Native American Festival this summer. I opened it up like it was the most precious thing I had ever found. Slowly opening the top, I let him squeeze the drops into the water and he looked up at me to make sure he did it right. "That's PERFECT!" I exclaimed. He helped me put the top back on the spray bottle and I shook it up. "We are going to get rid of all the monsters. Are you ready?" I asked. He just nodded almost half scared of what was about to transpire. I grabbed his hand and together we wandered around the house saturating every thing in our path. Nothing was spared; the couch, the toilet, the toy box, the washing machine, everything was sprayed. He was my wingman. He would point to things and I would spray.
As we sprayed down the hallway I stopped suddenly "Uh oh!" I said. I felt him grab my hand tighter as he reluctantly said, "What?" I pointed toward the bed where his Daddy lay in a deep asleep oblivious to the Monster Madness happening around him. I whispered, "What should we do about him?" He responded "We need to protect him!" So sleeping Daddy awoke in shower of Monster spray. Sleeping Daddy went a little spazo trying to figure out what eff was happening then angrily settled back into bed as if the victim of a prank in a freshman dorm room. Once he got settled in his, son whispered to him that it was going to be OK and gave him a kiss. I was still laughing too hard to spray the rest of the room. It was showtime. His room was next.
We went in guns a blazin! Might as well went in there with a fire hose. He had a big grin on his face and said "Monsters don't like our house, it's STINKY!" Apparently the wee-one didn't appreciate the fine fragrance sold by the Native Americans that summer. Everything was soaked. Much to my surprise, it worked! After the spray-fest was over he was ready to go back to bed without a care. I left the sprayer next to the Louisville Slugger beside my bed.
All was right in the world.

Monster spray + a little bit of 2am insanity = fond memories

Thank you Joe for the monster spray idea. I didn't have air freshener so I had to improvise!