Monsters On His Mind

If someone made a pie chart of Ian's brain, this is basically what it would look like: 88% - favorite movies and TV shows, 5% - how to get more chocolate, pudding and ice cream, 5% - Transformers, Bakugan and Pokemon toys, and how to get more of them, 2% - how to piss off my brother.

So you get the picture. Ian is very taken with, let's call it, the 'visual arts.'

Four months ago, his Papa took him to a movie. It's still on his mind.

"Mom? When I saw Monsters, Inc. that was really cool."

"Sure, that is a cool movie."

"Mom? Did you know that Rebecca was there."

Of course she was. "Who else was there?"

"And Lucas and Josh and Kristin," he squeezed my hand, clearly relishing the memory of seeing a movie with his friends. "And Rebecca, too." In case I had missed that.

"Mom? You know what? Julian didn't get to see it."

"I think that movie is too scary for Julian."

You could do the aforementioned pie chart exactly the same way for Julian, except the 88% would be evenly split between "monsters" and "how to piss off my brother." Julian could practically care less about movies and TV shows.

"Mom? You know what? It doesn't scare me because I'm tough!"

"I know you are," I say, hoisting him up to press the call button on the door of his school building. They ask him who's there and he screams "Optimus Prime!!" into the intercom. I let him down. They buzz us in.

"Mom? You know what? If I see a monster, I can just turn into a robot and kill it."

I'm sort of not paying attention at this point. I'm looking for a form that we had to fill out from his dentist that says he has good dental hygiene. I'm glad the public schools have time to be concerned about this.

"Good," I say, "can you teach Julian how to turn into a robot and kill all his monsters, please? Mommy and Papa need to get some sleep."

Ian unzips his coat and we start walking upstairs. "Sure, Mom. I can do that."

Thank God. We finally have a good night of sleep ahead. Until Julian realizes he's scared of being a robot.