What happened to my little monster?

It was a lifetime ago; long before the days of driving to dinner with friends, baby sitting on New Year's Eve and high school; long before a move across the sea to another land, even before those fun elementary homeschooling days. It was a simpler time before the pressure of SATs, grades and getting into college and a little 3 1/2 year old girl sat with a square pad of paper and a pencil. She drew alone; the Daddy off at med school, the Mommy probably in the shower or taking care of the baby brother. She meticulously drew the same picture on each piece of paper. She had a plan! While no one was looking, she hid those pieces of paper around the house, in drawers, cabinets, under the covers in the bed, any little hide-y hole a 3 year old could find. Wouldn't the Mommy and Daddy be scared when they found them.

Later that day the first one was discovered. "What's this?", the daddy asked the Mommy. The little girl could hardly contain herself, "It's a monster. Are you scared?" She giggled. Over the next few weeks, monsters turned up in all sorts of places, each one greeted with the appropriate "scared" response from the parents. They were typical of drawings by kids of that age, a round circle with eyes, a nose and jagged triangles for monster teeth, 2 stick arms came off each head and an occasional one also had 2 stick legs coming out of the bottom of the head. They were stacked together until there were 30, 35, then more than 40 little monsters. Eventually, monster findings became fewer and fewer and after a while, in an effort to clean up, the mom threw away the stack of monsters. More than a year had passed when one day the Mommy was digging through her makeup drawer and found, tucked in the back under a plastic tray, a little monster. She showed it to the little girl and the daddy and they all chuckled about the monsters before the Mommy tucked the little monster back into the drawer.

Time marched on, and the little girl grew, the family moved, then moved again overseas. The little monster moved along with the family, always living in a drawer with the Mommy's makeup. Occasionally, coming out as the Mom showed him to the Dad and they remembered that funny little girl and her "trick". One day, it came time for the family to return to the US for a year. The monster was packed up and returned with the family. The next year or so was a confusing time as the little girl became a teenager and the busyness that brings. There were a couple of moves as the family settled into life in the states. In all of this, the little monster was misplaced, forgotten and somehow lost.

For some reason, the Mom was reminded of the little monster one New Year's Eve. Perhaps it was because the Mom was looking for something in her makeup drawer or maybe it was that for the first time the little girl wouldn't be home on this night, but instead, off watching someone else's little boy. Whatever the reason, the bathroom was searched, each drawer dug through, the clothes drawers scoured and dumped, but much to my dismay, no little monster was found.

As I look ahead to 2012, I can't help but look back. How did we get here? How did time pass so quickly? Shouldn't my girl be little still?Moving into the new year, I'm excited to see what this year will bring, but it comes at a price and a little sadness. This will be the year that my youngest will learn to drive. It will most likely be the last full year my little girl will live at home. My Dad one time told me that days seem like years, but the years just fly by. I think I was about Emily's age at the time, and I understood the days seeming long as I sat in school each day. Now I truly understand fully what he meant. So my resolution for 2012 is to not get bogged down in the frustrations of each day, but to see the bigger picture, to stop and remember the "little monster" stories that happen during this year. We won't pass this way again and I want to cherish this precious time.

As for the little girl, she still likes to draw, but her pictures have gotten much better. I wish I could show you the little monster, but instead I will have to just leave you with this one drawn just this week.