I had my first, ‘there’s a monster in my room’ experience with Ilan last night. I woke up at 01h00 to hear a terrified cry coming from the kids’ room. I felt for Ilan in the dark and asked him what was wrong – it’s usually a ‘where’s my dummy’ or ‘I’m itchy’ kind of problem but this time he said, ‘I’m scared. I’m scared of the monster. Mommy, lie with me.’ What a mommy privilege it is to be able to climb into a teeny toddler bed and rescue your little one from a scary monster. I love being his safe place and having his little arms strangle me as he falls asleep mid-cuddle.
I’m surprised it took so long for the monster night terror to come along because every morning Ilan says he dreamt about monsters and dragons and dinosaurs and fire, but presumably these were not ‘scaredy’ dreams. We’ve had a bad dream incident with a ‘naughty cow’ before, but monster dreams are the next level.
Here’s hoping my mommy hug powers can last forever.
