One of the benefits of sharing a room

...is that your sister can comfort you when you're scared and/or sad. I remember my own sister doing this for me (and vice-versa) when we were kids.

For some reason, Dos got it into her poor, over-tired head tonight that there was a monster in the closet. She could not simply ignore it and fall asleep. First she cried, then she sobbed.... I closed the closet door so no monsters could get out. Nope. That wasn't going to cut it. I opened the closet and showed her the very safe and boring contents: Dresses, shirts, pants, shoes, a few books on the top shelf -- no monsters anywhere. More tears, increased hysterics, and a repeated insistence of a "real live monster" lurking in the shadows of her closet.

"Hey Dos," Uno called from her bed. "Who's that guy who's blue and eats cookies all over the place?" She had to repeat herself a couple of times before Dos even heard her. "You know, the guy who's blue and eats cookies all over and he lives on Sesame Street?"

"Cookie Monster," Dos replied, wiping her nose with the back of her hand.

"See?" said Uno. "He's a nice guy. We only let nice monsters like Cookie Monster and Elmo in our house."

It still took Dos a while to calm down, but she did eventually. I went to check on them just now and Uno had climbed in bed with her; they're sleeping (finally!) side by side, Uno's arm around Dos's shoulders.


~RCH~