We all have impossible ideals of what we might use things for, especially with kids, and we forget that kids think differently than adults. They are messy. They don’t have the same logic pounded into them. They are not hampered by needing to do things ‘correctly’, or neatly, or rightly, or any other kind of ‘ly’. They just do.

I think the Fred Food Face people should consider doing before and after shots… because I can’t stop laughing at how disgusting (and fun) this can really be.

photo by jted, iPhone+Hipstamatic

Today I listened to a radio documentary wherein John Ellison told his story about being a poor, black kid from a coal-mining town in West Virginia. He eventually became a musician, wrote the hit “Some Kind Of Wonderful”, and made a lot of money. He had many hard-luck stories about the poverty and racism he encountered through the 60s and 70s, but his positive attitude shone through it all. The documentary ended with this quote:

The good part about life is for every negative, ignorant person you meet, you meet ten nice people. ~John Ellison

Robertson Building Green Wall in Toronto

In the lobby near my wife’s work there is a wall covered entirely by plants; huge giant leaves, cascading vines, mostly green, with the occasional flower. In front of this living wall is a large wooden bench. The bench is square, like a butcher’s block, but it is carved to look like someone grabbed it from both ends and twisted it a quarter turn. Four young French-speaking children were left in this lobby while their guardians sought caffeine in the attached coffee shop. All four kids immediately rushed to the bench and sat facing the wall. They were exclaiming excitedly, touching the plants with their hands, engaging with nature. I was shocked to see such an intense reaction to something that was not info-tainment on a flat-screen monitor. They weren’t glued to their Nintendo DSs, they weren’t playing games on a super-phone or watching movies on a tablet. These kids  were watching plants grow! For over fifteen minutes! Eventually their guardians returned and they continued on their adventures, but it was so refreshing to remember that kids can love nature. Put them in a stimulating environment, and they light up themselves. This observation filled me with great hope.

“Oh, you know,” she shrugs, “That kind of medium-sized dog. Not the little ones that fit in your purse.”

“I don’t have a purse,” I say.

“Oh Daddy! The kind that don’t grow taller than your knee. You know, ‘below-knee’ dogs?” She puts her hand about a foot-and-a-half from the ground.

“We’re still not getting a dog,” I say, stifling a laugh.

“I know,” she says knowingly. “But when we do, we’re getting a ‘below-knee’ dog.”

Sebastian Drawing 'Squiggly', The First Bedroom Monster

Understanding your fear is the first step to conquering it. Fear of the unknown can be crippling, but uncovering it, inspecting it, classifying it, and describing it can keep that fear at arms length. So it was that my son, who had expressed his fear of monsters the night before, came to spend the morning drawing and describing them to me the next day. These were the creatures that kept him up at night, he insisted. He went into morbid detail about the worst of them. And tonight, he went to sleep without concern.

His explorations into the depths of his greatest fears can be found below.

Classification of BEDROOM MONSTERS:

SQUIGGLY: He is the greatest and most fearsome of the mosters. He is long and flat, and lives under your bed. He has very long, spindly, swirling arms that can wrap and envelope and grab. Without leaving his place, he can snatch you from your bed and drag you underneath to your doom.

SPIKEY: This monster hides in the closet, lying in wait should you escape the clutches of Squiggly. Then it chases you around the dark room, poking and prodding you with sharp prongs.

JAIL: This may be the scariest of the bedroom monsters. Jail lives in old armoires, peeking out of the door and terrifying children with his ugly face. As if that wasn’t enough, he has a human head tied to his ankle with it’s own hair.

TOILET: If you are unfortunate enough to have a a conjoined bathroom in your bedroom, the Toilet Monster, a filthy creature with three decrepit heads, waits for children with full bladders to approach the toilet and then bites them where the sun don’t shine.

COKE: Coke is a monster of forbidden, childish desires. It temps children to stay up late, putting them in perilous danger with other monsters.

BIG NOSE: He is a simple monster of brute force and pig-like expression, who likes to walk heavily about the room when you have the covers over your head.

SIX-LEGS: This extra-limbed horror live inside of every child’s mattress and kicks them whenever they are about to fall asleep, causing their bodies to jerk and jolt them awake.

These are but a few of the Bedroom Monsters, studied and classified by six-year-old Sebastian Xavier in his own home.

All Monsters Drawn and Named By Sebastian