Intro: this is a story I wrote about a year ago, but never posted it. If you have kids, I’d suggest you read it out loud to them. There are certain parts in this story where my kids crack up, and I’m interested to hear if the same is true for your children. Thanks for reading! – JM
“What’s wrong, EmberBaby?” Jesse asked his little sister,
Rubbing the sleep from his eyes.
“Do you need a drink of water?
Did you have a bad dream?
Were the SCARY monsters in your closet being mean again?”
“YES!” cried Ember Baby.
Then she ran to Jesse’s bed,
Her purply monkey following closely behind.
“The Monsters are mean and scary.
They grunt and growl.
They keep me up on purpose and
I. DON’T. LIKE. THEM.”
——————————–
Jesse tried his best to comfort her
The way Mama and Daddy do.
He said “awwww” and patted her head
And kissed her squishy cheeks.
“It’s OK EmberBaby,
You can sleep with me.
I’ll tell the Monsters to ‘GO AWAY’
And they’ll listen. Because I’m five.”
Ember snuggled next to her big brother
And tried to fall asleep
But a sneaky question kept opening her eyes.
“Jesse,” she whispered softly
“Why did God make mean monsters?”
——————————
Jesse thought for a moment,
Of all the stories he’d heard
About God making the animals
And the trees and planets and sky.
No mention of monsters, he thought,
But they must have been forgotten
“When God made the monsters,
He didn’t make them mean,
Because God doesn’t make mean things.
They were nice and friendly
And had the best birthday parties.
All the animals loved them, and even people too.
But their best friends were the dinosaurs”
——————————
“On Saturdays they would go on Monster and Dinosaur adventures
And the monsters would ride on the T-Rex’s like horsies.
They would climb volcanos
And camp outside and count the stars
And try to guess what the moon was made of.
They didn’t have a Daddy to tell them
That it’s just made out of rocks”
“But when God closed his garden,
Everyone had to find a new home
And some people built a big tower fort that
Reached all the way up to the sky.
They told the monsters not to come in,
And to build their own tower fort somewhere else.
Because they didn’t like them anymore.”
——————————-
So the monsters built their own tower
With waterslides, and lasers, and dancing music
And the dinosaurs would come and have parties
And jump from the top of the tower ALLLLL
The way down to a huge pool at the bottom.
They painted the tower yellow
Because that was their favorite, like mine.”
“And pink!” Ember perked up, excited.
“Shhh” scolded Jesse, “Don’t be too loud.
Pink was the dinosaurs’ favorite color
So the monsters let them paint the inside of the tower pink
And everyone loved living there.”
“And then what happened,” Ember asked,
“To make the monsters mean?”
——————————-
Jesse had forgotten about that question.
So he thought again about the stories.
“The Flood!” he said, proud
That he remembered.
“The Monsters couldn’t fit on the Ark.
And that made the dinosaurs sad
So the monsters turned their tower into a rocket ship
And blasted off into space.”
“They saw the whole world fill with water
When they landed on the moon.
(That’s how they learned it was made of rocks,
And had caves that went all the way to the middle.)
In the middle of the moon, there was a door.
So one of the monsters opened it.
It was a magic door to Earth!”
—————————–
“And they drownded?”
Ember asked.
“No” Jesse said, without skipping a beat,
“That’s how they drained the Earth.
They opened the door, and all the water
Came shooting out into space
And then it froze, and that’s how we got snow.”
“Oh,” chuckled Ember, “I love snow!”
“Me too. And the water filled the whole cave,
And then froze and blocked the door.
And it also elect-o-cuted the computers
On their space ship and it broked.
So the monsters were stuck on the moon FOREVER.”
Ember began to feel sad.
She whimpered, “Awww.”
—————————-
“Well…” hesitated Jesse, “maybe not forever…
But they lived on the moon a long long time
And had cute cuddly Monster babies
And the babies got older, even older than me!
So they were finally old enough
To find a moon dragon, who could breathe fire
And he melted the ice in the cave so they could open the door.
And that’s how they got back to Earth!”
“And then they were mean?” Ember persisted
“No, they weren’t mean yet,” Jesse explained
And still thought to himself about how to
Answer that question.
If he could just think hard enough,
He could figure it out, he was sure.
Because he was five.
——————————-
“I know!” he exclaimed.
“Shh!” Ember scolded, “Don’t. Be. Too. Looouuud”
“Sorry,” he whispered, then continued
“The monster babies had never seen people,
And the new people had never seen monsters.
And the monsters, couldn’t even speak English
Because they had never heard it before.”
“So when they tried to say ‘hi!’ to a person,
And asked ‘do you want to have a party?’
It sounded like this:
‘Aghbsh! Waggu Doopee Aghbsh!'”
Ember giggled loudly at the funny noises
Jesse made. And he was happy, but reminded
Her to be quiet again.
—————————–
“It did sound funny, but it scared the people
And they thought the monsters wanted to eat them.
So the people yelled and grabbed guns and sticks
And chased the monsters.
The monsters ran and ran until they could
Hide in the forest.
They were scared of the people, and
Wanted to go back to the moon door
But the people got there first, and covered the door
And blowed it up with dynamite.
That made the monsters sad and angry,
Like when I was angry when you broke
My toy today.”
——————————-
“Oh. Yeah…” Ember
Looked down sheepishly
“I’m sorry, Jesse.”
“It’s OK. I forgave you. Remember, silly?”
“OH. Yeah!” Ember giggled again.
“But the people didn’t say sorry,” explained Jesse.
“So the monsters decided to sleep during the day,
And wake up at night to scare the people —
That’s called Knock-Turn-O.
So, the monsters aren’t really mean.
They just wanted to have friends again,
And they miss their families.”
——————————
“Ohhhhhh, I see!” Ember said.
“I’m going to back to my bed,
And I’ll tell the monster to be quiet
So we can be friends.”
“OK,” Jesse replied.
“Goodnight, EmberBaby, I love you.”
“I love you too, Jesse.”
—————————-
Ember and her purply monkey
Walked back to her bed and
Snuggled under the covers
“Monster,” Ember called out
“We can be friends and have a party tomorrow”
“But you have to be quiet and let me sleep, OK?”
And the monster in the closet
Smiled a big smile.
And Ember fell asleep.
And the Monster did too.
And never scared Ember again.
My Morning Elegance 