The Spooky Crew

Every kiddo has her quirks. Not to be confused with the strange habits that are actually agreed-upon behaviors adopted by a National Association of Toddlers. For example, our firstborn went through a stage during which she would not allow me to sing. Not in the car, not at home. I was not even allowed to hum. Any utterance from me that sounded remotely melodic would incite a shrieky "Mommy! NO SINGING!"

I thought it was bizarre. Then I found out that most mothers of two-to-three-year-olds are also not permitted to sing. Why? I do not know. All I know is that my same daughter, now five, regularly hands me the microphone and begs me to sing the karaoke version of Aladdin's "A Whole New World." And I comply. Because I am a good Mommy. And because I can rock that song.

Meanwhile, our three-year-old covers her ears in protest because she is a new member of the Facebook Group, "My Mom Sings; MAKE IT STOP."

Our second child has some other interesting characteristics. A little Goldilocks, she won't eat if her food is either too hot or too cold. Normally frozen foods, like POPSICLES, must be mummified in towels so her little paws don't get cold. And if we warm up our dinner--you know, cook it--we have to put hers in the freezer afterwards so it doesn't resemble food that was ever warm by the time she puts a bite near her lips. In that regard, she's high maintenance. And just a little annoying.

Every night when she goes to bed, yes, she has to have her blanket just so, and of course, she has to have the flower light on, and then, she has to have a kiss and a hug and finally, she tells whichever parent is present that she needs to tell a secret. And the secret is usually something like, "Ummmm....remember when we went to Disneyland....and I was...there?"

Yes, yes, I do. Thank you for that. NOW GO TO SLEEP.

But she doesn't go to sleep. This is the part where she hunts through her toys in various drawers and bins for those she has deemed "scary," and when she finds them, she dumps the offenders just outside her bedroom door out of sight. The Bat and the Snake, along with the Dragon and Witch from Sleeping Beauty are usual suspects in this exclusion drama, but once in a while, a rather innocent-looking smiling yellow dinosaur is included in the bunch.

Each morning we put these items back in what seems to us to be a bottomless pit of plastic toy doodads. And impossibly, each night she uncovers the very same ones and unceremoniously rejects them. It's a little household mystery with a strange consistency.

So I capture here the collection of scary critters whose presence in her bedroom threatens our three-year-old's timely slumber.

That would be the three-year-old who regularly threatens our timely slumber.