Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear - not absence of fear.

I am a little groggy this morning. After a good 2 hour session on the $50 Max tables that saw me drop 3 buy ins and win back 5 in the space of 200 hands I carried my old half crippled ass to bed. It wasn't long before I heard the pitter patter of tiny little feet sneak into the room and a small voice tell me that yet again the monster that lives under the bed was back and going to eat my son.

This has been an ongoing thing since the move to Houston from Austin and I mostly blame myself. Back in Austin we had this same problem for a few weeks and then I came up with the idea to kill the big bad monsters and rid our household of the plague of young child eating demons that lurk in dark corners. In the old house the nightly routine was I would follow ConnorMc into his room and have him point out the monsters to me and then I would spend a good 5-10 minutes beating up the monsters, ripping them to little pieces, stomping on them, bite their heads off and then the boy and I would go outside to the trash can and toss the lifeless dead bodies of imaginary child harming monsters into the trash can. This worked for a few weeks until one night I came in to do my nightly monster clean up and ConnorMc told me I didn't need to because the monsters were not going to ever come back again... they were to afraid of the little girl that comes at night and sneaks in his window.

" That's cool... wait what??? What little girl that comes in your window?"

" Yeah Daddy, the monsters are really scared of her and when she shows up they all run away."

"Why are they so scared of the little girl ConnorMc, what does she do that scares them and where does she come from?"

"She lives in the front yard under the grass over by that tree and she comes to my window every night to talk to me. She is my friend but when she sees the monsters she gets mad at them and they run away scared."

It was about this time that I heard the whimpering of my lovely wife who had been listening from the door. To hear your 2 and a half year old son tell you that the little girl under the tree is powerful enough to scare away the nightly monsters and that she can come in the window ANDDD that she lives under the grass near the tree was just a little to much for her. I have to tell you it kind of got me too.

" Well, does the little girl tell you to do anything else?"

" No she just likes to talk to me."

" She never tells you to do anything like stab Daddy or kill the dog or anything does she?"

" No daddy that is silly, she likes you, she thinks you are funny."

So there we were, no more monsters under the bed because the little girl that lives in the yard was scarier than Daddy and the monsters don't want to mess with her. I don't know about you guys but I felt safe...

We went monster free for about 4 months until one night ConnorMc comes sliding into the room quietly and tugs on my wife's hair telling her he is scared because the monsters are back. My dear wife thinking it through all the way says

"Well tell the little girl they are back and she can scare them off, go back to bed buddy."

"The little girl ran away, she is afraid of the man"

My eye's pop open immediately at this statement.

"What man buddy?"

"The man that lives up on the roof, he is real mean and wont let the little girl come talk to me anymore. He told the monsters they can come back."

Now this is all coming from a kid that is just about to turn 3 years old. We don't let him watch scary movies we don't tell him bedtime stories with monsters in them we don't let him watch cartoons with violence in them and overall we shield him from just about everything imaginable that can scare a little kid. How the hell does he come up with this???

I pull my son up into bed and figure his story holds enough weight to warrant a night in the bed with me and the wife and we fade back into sleep... for a bit

" STOP IT! STOP LOOKING AT ME!!!"

My eye's pop open to find my son standing straight up on the bed staring at my bedroom door clutching Mr.Bear his favorite sleep buddy.

"Daddy the man is looking at me and he wont stop, he is laughing at me"

"Uh what man? What the hell are you talking about kid?"

"Wight there Daddy, in the door... it is the man from the roof. He is staring at me and laughing. IT IS NOT FUNNY!"

Needless to say I was awake at this point as was MommaMc. We jumped out of bed and turned every light in the house on and it was time to start the day. It didn't matter that it was just after 4AM, neither of us were going back to sleep. We could not figure out where ConnorMc was getting all this. Like I said we really never got into the scary movies and scary bed time stories. Weird thing was after that night/morning we never heard anymore about the man or the little girl again, it was like ConnorMc just stopped having the nightmares and seeing them.

Fast forward to last week. After 6 months of not hearing about scary men and ghostly little girls I awoke to the all to familiar sound of ConnorMc screaming at the top of his lungs. We have been living in the new house for 2 weeks now and almost nightly we have been getting the "Monsters are scaring me" speech. Here he comes walkin in his Spiderman underwear clutching MrBear in one hand and his pillow in the other bellowing as loud as his little body can. He is headed straight for myside of the bed tears flowing and snot streaming from his nose.

" Daddy I am scared! I wanna sleep with you!!! he monsters are scaring me!!!"

"Connor stop crying. There are no monsters in this house or in your room. You are not sleeping with Daddy tonight so go back to your room and go to sleep. When you wake up we will have breakfast."

"DADDY! They are scary"

"Connor go back to your room. Tell the monsters that if they do not go away that your daddy is going to call the cops and have them arrested and taken to jail"

The crying and the tears stop and he looks at me in the calmest face I have seen and says

"OK Daddy I think that will work"

He turned around, went back to his room and we didn't hear another sound all night. I got up this morning and had breakfast and asked him what the monsters said to him when he told them he was calling the cops.

"The got scared and told me they were sorry and left. They aren't coming back anymore."

Let's see how long this lasts.