Things are downright spooky at the Molloy household these days. Similar to the way that Elise has been preoccupied with robbers over the last few months, Lucas has been obsessed with the idea of monsters. He's not worried about monsters, the way Elise is about robbers, but it seems to be something that is always on his mind. He has the kind of love-hate relationship with monsters that makes me think that he's going to love horror movies when he's a teenager. He can't seem to decide if monsters are really fun or really scary - but maybe it's fun to be scared?
Luke's imagination has really taken off in the last few months. He has begun to incorporate imaginative play into everything, which has not only been fun for us to watch but also fun for Elise who enjoys playing with him even more now that he goes along with pretending to be the baby in a game of house and will participate in having conversations between the animal toys in the bath. But his two favorite imaginative games are having his cars talk to each other (typically they just say "hi" to each other a lot - though it is getting more complex lately) and the Monster game.
The Monster game usually involves him saying "You're the monster" and then you make some sort of monster-like roar sound and he laughs and runs away and you chase him and roar some more. But usually within a few minutes of this game, he gets scared of your monster impression (perhaps I am just a too realistic monster?!) and says "You're not a monster - you're Mommy" perhaps more to reassure himself then to remind me who I am. Or sometimes he redirects you to be the monster toward something else - like you should be scaring the matchbox car, not at him. Even though it does scare him, he can't really get enough of the Monster game. We play this game probably hundreds of times a week.
Lucas and neighbor Saira
I thought because he'd been talking a lot about monsters and liked to play the Monster game all the time that it would be a good time to introduce one of my favorite books from childhood, The Monster at the End of This Book. In case you haven't read it (SPOILER ALERT!) throughout the book, Grover (from Sesame Street) is trying to convince the reader not to turn each page because it makes you one page closer to the end of the book and there is a monster at the end of the book (as the title tells you). Grover is very scared of the monster and really does not want to get to the end of the book and he basically freaks out that the reader keeps turning the page. It is a lot of fun. I loved it as a kid (and, frankly love it as an adult) and Elise always thought it was a hoot too.
Luke's imagination has really taken off in the last few months. He has begun to incorporate imaginative play into everything, which has not only been fun for us to watch but also fun for Elise who enjoys playing with him even more now that he goes along with pretending to be the baby in a game of house and will participate in having conversations between the animal toys in the bath. But his two favorite imaginative games are having his cars talk to each other (typically they just say "hi" to each other a lot - though it is getting more complex lately) and the Monster game.
The Monster game usually involves him saying "You're the monster" and then you make some sort of monster-like roar sound and he laughs and runs away and you chase him and roar some more. But usually within a few minutes of this game, he gets scared of your monster impression (perhaps I am just a too realistic monster?!) and says "You're not a monster - you're Mommy" perhaps more to reassure himself then to remind me who I am. Or sometimes he redirects you to be the monster toward something else - like you should be scaring the matchbox car, not at him. Even though it does scare him, he can't really get enough of the Monster game. We play this game probably hundreds of times a week.Lucas and neighbor Saira
I thought because he'd been talking a lot about monsters and liked to play the Monster game all the time that it would be a good time to introduce one of my favorite books from childhood, The Monster at the End of This Book. In case you haven't read it (SPOILER ALERT!) throughout the book, Grover (from Sesame Street) is trying to convince the reader not to turn each page because it makes you one page closer to the end of the book and there is a monster at the end of the book (as the title tells you). Grover is very scared of the monster and really does not want to get to the end of the book and he basically freaks out that the reader keeps turning the page. It is a lot of fun. I loved it as a kid (and, frankly love it as an adult) and Elise always thought it was a hoot too.Elise and neighbor Elias
But while I was reading this book to Lucas for the first time, he was literally shaking with fear - he kept telling me "don't turn the page!" in this sad, terrified way instead of laughing and turning pages to defy Grover as the book is intended. I wanted to read the whole thing and get to the end so that he could see that there is nothing to be scared of (Grover is, in fact, the monster at the end of the book - and Grover is obviously not a scary monster) but he was so scared I had to skip nearly the entire book and go directly to the reassuring end. But he didn't find it all that reassuring, and has never wanted to read that book since.So I guess we are not into monster stories quiet yet. Which is fine by me - I am not much of a scary story kind of gal anyway. But I am happy to keep playing Monsters with my favorite little monster.
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