Mummy Dearest

So Harrison and I are driving along the other day and he’s chattering a mile a minute. Most of the time when he’s doing that, I talk with him, answer his questions and basically try to keep the conversational ball rolling.

Sometimes, though, I am in a complex traffic situation and so my responses fall between the “Um hmmm.” and the “Oh, really?” types. I figure that in the grand scheme of things, he’s going to be happier long term that I didn’t get us killed while driving than he will be if I hear and respond to every single thing he has said.

So anyway, we’re driving along and I’m giving a lot of “Huh.” responses. It was something about how Halloween was coming up and what kind of costume he thought I should wear. He changes his mind on this point almost daily—the latest iteration is that I should be a gorilla.

I then hear him listing off various monsters. “…and vampires and ghosteses and what’s that monster with the things on his neck, Mommy?”

“Hmmm? What, you mean Frankenstein’s monster?”

“Yeah, Frankenstein’s monster. I’m scared of him and vampires and ghosteses and warehouses and mommies and…”

“Wait a minute—what?”

“Huh?”

“What’s this? What are you listing?”

“The monsters I’m scared of. I’m scared of Halloween monsters like Frankenstein’s monster and vampires and ghosteses and warehouses and mommies and…”

“Wait, you’re scared of mommies?” I mean, I’ve known some pretty scary moms, but Harrison has always seemed to be able to charm most of them. I can’t, for the life of me, imagine why he would be scared of moms.

“You know—mommies! Wif the toilet paper around their arms.” I can see him in the rearview mirror pantomiming wrapping toilet paper around his arms.

“Ooooooooh! You meant mummies!”

I can’t see his face at this point, but I’m pretty sure it has the ‘How stupid is this woman?!?’ look on it that I’ve become pretty familiar with.

“Yeah, that’s what I said! I’m afraid of mommies and Frankenstein’s monsters and vampires and warehouses and…”

He continued his list of scary Halloween monsters and I didn’t have the heart to correct his warehouse fear.

Besides, I can kind of see it. I mean, they’re dark places out of which anything could pop at any time. For all I know, that could be his actual fear. Maybe he thinks that that’s where the Frankenstein’s monsters and mommies are all hiding. :)