The Creature from the Black Lagoon

So last week there was a giant used book sale to benefit Richardson schools. Kids books were 25 cents to $1. I got Lea about 12 books and in that mix were some books "Cafeteria Lady from the Black Lagoon," "Bus Driver from the Black Lagoon" and "Gym teacher from the Black Lagoon." She read them all day long. Read them in the car, read them on the couch and then came the questions about the Creature from the Black Lagoon. 

I explained it was a movie from the 1950s and it was all made up. That the creature from the Black Lagoon looked alot like Link from "Aliens vs. Monsters." She asked me questions about the creature from the Black Lagoon for about 3 hours so when we got home tired from a big day out and about, I thought movie night was in order. In my infinite bad parenting wisdom I thought, "Hey, I wonder if  "Swamp Thing" is on Netflix.  That was funny, right?" Well, it's not funny, its just bad and if you're 5 years old its not only bad, it's scary. 


For 20 minutes she asked when does the monster come? Is he going to turn into the swamp thing? When does the monster come? And then some shooting and the swamp thing showed up... so did the crying. We turned it off, explained that he was a good guy. He saved the lady and later the lady kissed the monster. They even go off and get married (I don't actually remember the end, but it was evident we were never going to see it, so some embellishment was in order.) 


We switched to a cartoon movie, ate some popcorn and thought all was forgotten. Until bedtime. The wiggly bottom lip, tears in her eyes and I knew I'd scarred my daughter for months if not her lifetime with a bad 80s monster movie! I read the "Black Lagoon" books to her to show that they weren't scary. They're just books about a boy who thinks the new people coming to school must be terrible because he doesn't know them, but once he meets them they're nice normal and very sweet. They even make chocolate chip cookies! But that didn't help. When she looked at the Lunch Lady, The Gym Teacher or the Bus Driver on the pages, all she saw was the guy in bad green latex running around with Adrienne Barbeau. As is often the case, I find that there is not a situation where past episodes of friends cannot offer a valuable life lesson — I put the books in the freezer, ala Joey. That helped for that night. 


Three nights in a row, after normal stories were read, the Black Lagoon books safely in the freezer and I thought she was almost off into sweet 5-year-old dream land, a teary cry comes from her room. Last night it snowballed into "I'm afraid of monsters with teeth and T-Rexes and zombies, but not ant zombies, but real zombies." Well, Heavens to Betsy!  I explained all that was to be explained from Elmo is a monster and we like him to T-Rexes are not alive anymore. But what helped was saying that we could step on T-Rex's toe with a high heeled shoe so he hopped around and fell over and then we'd kick him in the nose. Empowerment, right? 


It was made clear to me by Lea that the Black Lagoon books were to leave the house. I tucked them in my purse this morning expecting to hand them off to someone at work with similarly aged children (and add the seemingly obvious parental advice that escaped me: don't show your 5-year-old monster movies, no matter how bad the effects are!). As we walked up to the entrance to the kindergarden building we were in step with one of the boys in her class. A boy that at the beginning of the year she had to be moved away from because he was hitting her, teasing her, drawing on he paper (could it be a: boys will be boys? b: problem child? or the more likely c: he has a crush on her? the world may never know). 


Lea spotted the books peeking out of my purse and said "Maybe he would like the books!" "Oh, maybe?" I responded a bit surprised, but very happy with the idea. A generous spirt the girls has, I've raised her right, despite introducing her much too early to the horror genre. I handed the books off to his mom and left very pleased with that part of the situation. 


I phoned Dan to tell of her generosity at which time he pointed out the more likely scenario in Lea's little mind, and said "She probably hopes the Creature from the Black Lagoon eats him." We'll see if that thought lulls her to sleep tonight.

ps from Dan:  Lea told me she thought he would like the books because he "likes scary monster stuff."  She in not vindictive yet!