Day 952 - The Monster Game

Since Emma and Andrew are spending so much time with Crazy Grandma and Lazy Grandpa, it's always interesting to see what they pick up from them. Emma will say certain things that Crazy Grandma might say like, "Time to clean up!" or "Don't you do that!" And Andrew will say certain things that Lazy Grandma might say like, "I'm sleepy." or "Where's the remote?"

The one thing that I found interesting is that the kids have started to use the word "monster." Obviously, they did not pick that up from us because we don't dare use words like that. Now if they started to say words like "whore", "stanky", and "ass", then guilty as charged!

I found out from Crazy Grandma that before naptime they play a game called Grandpa Is a Monster. There's nothing more soothing or relaxing than identifying your grandpa as a man-eating ogre before hitting the sack. Basically it's Lazy Grandpa pretending to chase the kids around their bedroom...with a chainsaw and hockey mask.

While playing this soon-to-be patented childhood game, Crazy Grandma decided to change it up a little bit. She decided to call the game Andrew Is a Monster. Andrew loved chasing people around the room, but Emma was traumatized. She started to cry and told Crazy Grandma that she did not want Andrew to be a monster.

At first, I was going to pull out my childhood psychology textbook out and reread the chapter titled, "What To Do When Your Grandparent F*&ks With Your Child's Mind." I really hoped Emma wasn't going to be affected by this monster game because I no longer remembered how to use my electroshock therapy home kit.

But after I thought about it some more, I realized that the kids really have no idea what a monster actually is. Nobody ever explained to them what a monster was and what a monster looked like. In their minds, Emma and Andrew probably defined a monster as Lazy Grandpa chasing after them.

So I'm glad that my fear of the kids being afraid of monsters is unfounded. All I have to worry about is the kids correlating their fear of monsters with Lazy Grandpa. And why be concerned about a Japanese grandpa chasing after you with a Tivo remote in one hand and a cup of green tea in the other?