Y’all, I’m going to take you on a journey, so hang with me for a thread.

Recently, my toddler started to talk about a monster in her room.

I dismissed it as her developing imagination. After all, she’s constantly “seeing” dinosaurs on hikes, and Elsa’s castle out our window.

Talk about a monster didn’t bother me. Her idea of a “monster” is Elmo.

Besides, she’s attracted to spooky stuff like Halloween decorations, spiders and ghosts. Heck, her favorite ride at Hong Kong Disneyland is basically The Haunted Mansion but scarier.

We’re talking about the kid who stole my Edgar Allan Poe desk toy and plays with it like a doll.

But the other night I heard her shouting on the baby monitor about a monster.

I was about to rush in when I realized she was telling the monster what hairband she wanted to wear.

So I’m like, ok, no big deal. She’s got an imaginary friend she talks to at night.

Within a minute she was asleep.

But something about it felt... off. The monster thing came out of nowhere.

Next morning I ask her if the monster is a nice monster.

She says yes.

But then...

I’m talking to some Chinese colleagues who start saying, “Well, maybe she’s actually seeing something. You know we say kids can see things...”

I dismiss it.

As I’m rocking her to sleep that night she says, “Goodnight Monster.”

“Where is the monster?”

*Points to door*

Huh.

Something tickles the back of my brain. Something I can’t quite pin down about how before she was born this used to be my office, and there was always something about that door.

So I put her in her crib, walk to the door, and close it and see...

Oh.

Oooooooh.

My Thai demon mask that I’d hung there with a pen in its mouth to remind me to stay in there until my word goals were met.

Because I never closed myself into her room, I’d forgotten it was on the back of the door *the whole time.*

Her monster was REAL.

What’s funny is the door is not visible from her crib, so she’d only discovered it herself recently when she’d learned to open and close doors and began shutting herself in her room.

Which is why it came up suddenly.

This morning she confirmed that this is indeed “The Monster.”

I asked if she liked the Monster and she said yes, but when I asked if she was scared of it she also said yes.

So I asked if she wanted the Monster to to live in daddy’s room, and she said yes.

TL;DR listen to your kids because my toddler actually had a Monster in her room.