Fixing Bad Dreams

A wise mother and preschool teacher once told me to teach my children how to "fix" their bad dreams.   This has been a lifesaver over the years.  I even use it myself.  For example, if I dream a man is chasing me with a gun, I might then convince myself that the gun was really a marshmallow shooter, and that when the man gets closer, he's really my brother.  And then we giggle, sit down, and eat the yummy marshmallows together.

Early this morning, Jackie crawled into my bed.  "I need a cuddle, Mom," she said.  "I had a bad dream."

"Jackie, tell me your bad dream--let's fix it," I said. 

"Well, it went like this.  There were these kids who didn't like vegetables.  So they would sneak the vegetables in their socks, go outside, and bury them in the ground.  Eventually the vegetables grew up into a giant lima bean monster.  And he ate their parents!"  

At this point, Morgan was in the room and heard most of the story.  "All right, Jackie.  This is how you fix it," she declared calmly.  "The lima bean monster actually wanted to give the kids rides on his back.  Then his mommy called him home and he had to have dinner."

It turns out that a book from school inspired Jackie's dream. The story in the book is exactly like Jackie's dream, except that when the monster is just about to eat the parents, the children run up and eat him instead.  So they're eating their vegetables, and the parents are saved.  Win-win.

That seems like a pretty violent story to convince kids to eat their vegetables.  Move over Pinocchio.  Move over Little Red Riding Hood.  Here comes TALES OF THE VEGGIE MONSTER!