Wake up, Mommy! Wake up, Daddy!

Dan has moved into a monsters and nightmares stage – as least we hope it's just a stage. He runs around the house yelling, "Monsters are coming! Monsters are coming! Run!"

He's also been waking up in the wee hours of the morning, coming into our room and whispering, "Wake up, Mommy! Wake up, Daddy!" Hey, who needs an alarm clock when a toddler will do. As if the mornings don't come early enough around here...

We think nightmares are waking him up. For the first couple mornings Glen tried laying down with him to help him go back to sleep, but all that came of that was a late start on morning chores. So, now when Dan's up, he joins us in the barn for chores. He plays for a little while and then usually goes back to sleep in his stroller.

The other morning he woke up crying, something that rarely happened before this monster stuff started. I asked him what was wrong. He said he had a bad dream about alligators and hippopotamuses.

The next morning was the same. Except this time it really took him a long time to settle down. When he could finally tell me about his dream, he said, "Pumpkin coming! Pumpkin coming! Pumpkin bite my back. I climb up fence!"

I did a quick mental scan of the books we'd read recently. No scary pumpkins there. We have been seeing more pumpkins around as decorations in yards, but how those pumpkins turned into biting monsters we may never know.

I can only imagine what our mornings are going to be like as Halloween turns innocent looking pumpkins into scary pumpkins. How will I be able to tell Dan those biting pumpkins are only imaginary then?