Delicacies for Monsters

This is one of my favorite stories! This is how I traumatize my children!

One night, a year or so ago, Sara-Grace (then 7) appeared, sheepish and wide-eyed at the side of my bed, spooked (probably from watching "A Haunting" on TV with one of her sisters!) and insisting on sleeping with the big people.

Clearly, blessed sleep would be a long way off if I tried to force her to sleep alone in her obviously haunted, possessed, erie, and just plain EVIL bedroom (cute and pink-laden though it was). So, without even openning my eyes, I relented. "Get in", I said, pulling back the covers beside me.

Little heels dug into the wooden floor beside the bed. That wouldn't do. She wanted to sleep BETWEEN us (because grown-ups make very excellent protective barriers, you know).

But Mark is warm and all, well, you-know, Mark-like, so I told her she had to sleep on the outside. At this, her fear-widened little eyes just got wider and her hands clenched tighter around the stuffed dolphin she carried with her for protection.
On one side of the bed was the big scary window and on the other was the big scary door to the bathroom. Her little head ping-ponged back and forth between the greater evils, looking for a lesser one.

"WHY do I have to sleep on the outside?", she queried. This was followed by WAY too many logical reasonings about marital rights, parental omniscience, the duties of children from her over-explaining mother.

Undaunted and un-swayed, Sara-Grace repeated, "WHY do I have to sleep on the outside?"

I was fresh out of logic on the subject at this point but I guess the usually-elusive "funny switch" in my brain was still awakeand tripped, because, already tickled by my comic genius, I blurted out, in a burst of great humor and unconscionable parental insensitivity, "BECAUSE WE WANT THE MONSTER TO EAT YOU FIRST!"

Mark (who had been watching quietly to see if I would protect the sanctity of our marital spoon) and I dissolved into uncontrolable laughter. Sara-Grace, on the other hand, to this day does not think this was the least bit funny (though I suspect that mature perspective and family lore will combine to bring about the use of this line on her own poor, defenseless children someday).

By the way, she settled for sleeping on the window side (because a window offers slightly less accsessiblity to monsters than an easily-openable door, you know).

Sara-Grace's "Scary" Room!