My Kids love the Monster Manual

So last night I had the rare opportunity to be home when the kids were going to sleep. My wife took our infant and gave me instructions on how to go to put them to bed. Eat vitamins, brush teeth, read a book or two, then take them into the bed room turn on the nite lite and all that. No silly business, don't get them riled up. After all, the oldest is only six years old.

But my daughter had other made other plans. That is, she literally wrote out a plan on a bit of paper. And I walked right into it. After I finished the younger kid's teeth I ushered them into the reading nook and my 6 yo daughter was already there with the Monster Manual opened up to my favorite abberation -- the Gibbering Mouther. 

Now she knows that I like the gibbering mouther, but when I see the glint in her eye I know that she knows. Of course, the terrifying contents of the MM are not bedtime approved but honestly, I'm flattered that she remembered that I like Gibbering Mouther. And then, before my parental circuitry is fully engaged to extol Goodnight Moon she asks me sweetly "Oh Papa? Do you know what sound this strange creature makes?" And of course I respond with a wink and a whisper "Gibber gibber gibber!"

And soon all four of us are gibbering. Low will saves run in the family I guess.

After that I try to put them to bed, but they intuitively know that bedtime doesn't actualy start until Papa stops laughing. And so they goof around and ask a hundred questions about the Gibbering Mouther. So I read some of the descriptions, and happen to mention that they are Abberations. What's that? I'm not really sure, except that abberations are not anything else. So then they flip through the book looking for other abberations. And soon we've invented a new game: Animal, Monsterous Beast, or Abberation?

At first they just guess randomly, but soon they're asking very pointed questions. "Papa, does a Digester have real acid like in a stomach or is it a magical acid?" I tell them it's normal acid and they guess, correctly: magical beast. And by the time we get all the way through the alphabet to R for Roc, the kids are outraged that it's an animal and not a monsterous beast as they guessed.

I skiped over the extra planar stuff because I can't think of a way to explain the great wheel over the sound of the shouting, jumpin, spinning and acting like victims of the various monsters. (Note, "acting" as in the William Shattner school of overacting.)

Finaly they want to go back and guess all the other creatures (humanoids, extraplanars etc) but I insist, absolutely insist, that we read the pastboard edition of Noah's Ark. To get them quiet I promise that we'll play the Monster Manual book again soon.

 

 

 

...I can hardly wait! :D