Dinosaur

G is the better sleeper of my two boys.  His crying tore up my nerves a bit, but not nearly like B's.  Bedtime is bedtime, and he usually hops in, says a prayer with me, and heads off to dreamland.  G is two, though, and he likes to test sometimes.  Last night, he tried to give me trouble.

When I went to bed at 9:00, I knew he was still awake in his bed.  He'd been in bed for about 40 minutes.  Still, I was surprised when he showed up in my room around 9:10. 

"Mama, I fall out my Big Boy Bed."

"Well, climb back in, Buddy!  Night."

"And my pillow fall too." Pause. "And I'm too yittle to get it."

Nice try, pal.  "You're a big boy.  Put it in your bed, climb in, and go to sleep."

Off he went.  I assumed he'd go right to sleep.  Instead, I heard Jingle the Husky Pup ask someone to read to him over the baby monitor.  He requested his story several times, but I ignored him.  Then I heard some banging, and a crash.  I had visions of G hanging by his neck from his big boy bed or some other danger I'd missed.  I'm a born worrier. 

I dashed off to his room.  I left so quickly, I did not grab my glasses.  I have really terrible eyesight, so I probably should have snatched them.  As I neared his room, I nearly ran into G, who was on his way to mine. 

"Mama, there's a dinosaur in my room!" 

"G, there is NOT a dinosaur in your room."  I took him by the hand, turned him around, and headed back to his room.

Suddenly, I had a vision of a lizard in G's room.  The kid is two and I'm not sure we've ever used the word lizard around him.  Perhaps he equated one to a dinosaur, a word in his vocabulary.  Fear seized me, and I debated between running back for glasses so I could see a creepy crawly or waking my husband to scour the room for the critter.  Then I noticed a big green blob lying on the floor of his room. 

It was his play kitchen.  The toy had been overturned, its contents spilled on the floor.  A lizard must have done that. 

"What happened, G?"

"There's a dinosaur," he replied, then opened his toddler fist.

I knelt down really closely to his hand.  Adrenaline took over; I was ready to save my child from the creepy crawly.  Inside his chubbly little hand was this:

"G, go to bed."