Of monsters and bedtime

Friday morning, the spouse and Kid went off to some science-y adventure or other early on. I was still sleeping on the couch when they left after a long night attempting to sleep and failing. At about 10am I was awoken by Little Monster crying upstairs. I figured she would tromp down any second to announce she wanted seeral for breakfast. Eventually she arrived, still sobbing and dragging her blankets. We have a "no downstairs blankets or pacifiers" rule and she had both so I figured she must be really upset so I hugged her extra tight.

She told me "I have a bad dream. The monsters scare me. Then the dragon come flying around and it carry me away." I hid my shocked face, because seriously, whose 2 year old says stuff like that, and how did they sneak her into my house and why does she look so much like my aunts? Then we talked about it until she had settled down under her blankets next to me on the couch. I let her watch all the princess movies she wanted because she seemed feverish and yanked on her ear so I suspected yet another ear infection.

Then at noon she perked up and demanded food. She ate a vast quantity of food and then demanded another hot dog upon learning the berries were all gone. The rest of the day she was pretty close to normal but at "nap time" she had a fit about being alone in her bed and wouldn't sleep anywhere, despite being staggeringly tired. Bedtime rolled around and I knew big measures were needed to convince her to sleep at all.

So I told the girls about Monster Spray. You spray it around the room before bed and it keeps all the monsters out. (Some pharmacy in North Dakota made all the pharmacy news blogs a while back selling the stuff. Smart. I bet theirs smells nice.) They settled in for stories with my spouse and I dug out a little spray bottle, one I thought was broken and wouldn't spray even if there were water in it (why do we have so much junk?), loaded it up, and then sprayed around the room twice for good measure. On the second pass we discovered that the bottle still works eventually... Whoops. Saturday night I sprayed the room again after stories, because routines are always wise.

Sunday night after we put Little Monster to bed on time for once (after a 1.5 hour battle, but still before we officially crossed the line into "whoa it's late"), the Kid finished her stories and bedtime routine and seemed to be staying put in bed after a half hour. Then she snuck downstairs and asked me if I would use the Monster Spray on their room.