(no subject)
Title: A Little Monster Called Max
Author: alphabet_magic
Rating: G / PG
Disclaimer: All characters and situations other than my own belong to CowLip, not me.
This story is inspired by my nephew, affectionately called “Little Monster.” He turned three yesterday, in the midst of a snowstorm.
The first snow of the year occurred on Max’s third birthday. He awoke at seven with dinosaur blankets tangled around his legs and one sock missing. Green marker prints were on his pillow, having rubbed onto the fabric from his sweaty palms. He yawned, breathing in so deeply he felt a funny feeling in his chest. He coughed.
It was warm in his room, but the window above his bed was cold and foggy. He stood on shaky feet and touched the pane with the tip of his finger. It made a mark. He smiled, teeth tiny, white, with spaces between every one.
“Mmmuh,” he whispered, sounding out the M of his name. M. Camel hump. He painted messily in the condensation.
After a moment, Max lost interest. He dropped back down on his bed and studied the guardrail. It was simple to escape. Hold on to the bedpost, throw a leg over, then the other one, and slide. He did it almost every morning, but every morning he got in trouble. It’s “dangerous” to be out of bed by yourself, his daddy would say, picking him up. Kissing his ear. But then Daddy would put him in bed with him and Bine. It was a big bed, high off the ground. The sheets were warm.
Max climbed over the guardrail.
Whenever he got up in the mornings, he would usually play dinosaurs with the plastic figures Bine bought him. Max liked dinosaurs. They were his favorite things besides dogs, but Bine wouldn’t buy him a dog.
This morning, though, was his birthday. He was three whole years old. He was going to have a T-Rex birthday cake and open presents. Max took off his remaining sock, threw it on the floor, and left his room.
Max was short for his age. Even on tiptoes he could only graze with his fingers the knob on Daddy and Bine’s door. He couldn’t turn it. Max sighed. He wiped his nose on his sleeve before pushing it up like he saw Bine do before he did something serious. Then he beat-beat-beat on the door with his fist.
“Helloooo!” He yelled. “I coming in!” Waited.
Max didn’t hear anything, so he held his ear to the door. It sounded like Daddy and Bine were wrestling again. He sighed. They did it all the time.
Once, Max had walked into the bedroom and had seen Daddy and Bine wrestling under the covers. He told them to stop, and Daddy said, “Oh my God!” and yelled a grown-up word. They came up from under the covers. Bine was laughing and Daddy was red-faced.
He got dressed and walked Max out of the bedroom, then crouched down to his level and told him that Daddy and Bine wrestle sometimes because they love each other. That if Max ever thought they were wrestling, he should go play in his room for a while because it was a private thing that only grown-ups could see.
Max hated it when they wrestled. It took a very, very long time.
He sat down outside Daddy and Bine’s bedroom and sang the Happy Birthday Song. Happy birthday to Maaa-aaax. Happy birthday to you.
After a while, he felt the floor thump. Feet landing after someone slid off the big bed. Someone was talking. Max pushed himself up and walked back over to the door. Beat-beat-beat.
“I awake!”
The floor thumped again, and then the door opened. Finally.
“What’re you doing, Monster?” Bine asked, bending over a little so he wasn’t so tall. He was only wearing underwear and his chest was sweaty. Shiny. A bit red.
Max looked up at Bine and exhaled. His breath was warm and came out in a loud puff. “Happy bulfday to Max,” he said, always tripping over his R’s.
“It’s your birthday?” Bine asked, crouching down some more. He pushed back a strand of light brown hair from Max’s face and narrowed his eyes. “You should’ve told me. I would’ve gotten you a present.”
“No peasants?”
“You should’ve told me.”
Max thought he was going to cry. He wiped his nose on his sleeve. Sniffed.
“Brian, shut up,” Daddy said, exiting the bathroom and coming up behind Bine. He was wearing the soft pants Max liked to touch. “Daddy and Brian got you the best present.” He picked up his son and swung him around. Kissed his cheek. “Happy birthday.”
Bine sometimes told lies. It was okay, though. Max held his arms out to him.
“Sleep good?” Bine asked, grabbing Max from Daddy’s arms. He squeezed him tightly against his chest and kissed his chin. He always kissed Max’s chin or forehead. Daddy kissed his cheek or ear. Max kissed both of them on the mouth because that’s where kisses were supposed to go.
Daddy and Bine did it all the time.
“I sleeped okay.”
“Didn’t get eaten by a dinosaur?”
Max laughed. “Noooo.” He wrapped his arms around Bine’s neck.
After Daddy finished changing the sheets, he asked Max if he had to pee. He did.
Bine put him down and Max had to get his special stool from under the bathroom sink. He had to climb up so he could pee into the potty. Daddy always made sure he did a good job and didn’t pee on the wall or on the floor. He got in trouble for that.
~*~
While Daddy showered, Bine took Max into Daddy’s painting room. Max loved that room because it had the big windows that looked out over the yard. He could see forever and ever, blue eyes wide, magic marker stained fingers pressed against the glass.
“Check it out,” Bine said, holding him up so he could see well.
Max gasped. Eight inches of snow covered the ground in white blankets, not a shard of dead grass poking up anywhere. Still more fell from the sky like feathers escaping a pillow.
“Snooooow,” Max whispered. Breath fogged up the window by his mouth.
“For your birthday.”
“I build snowmans!”
“We can throw snowballs at Daddy.”
Max laughed. “I has my pah-ty in the snow.”
Bine bounced him on his hip. “No party today. Too much snow.”
No party? Max buried his face in Bine’s shoulder. His skin smelled like soap. Like bath time. No party, no party. “Happy bulfday to Max,” he said. His voice was muffled against Bine’s skin.
~*~
Max got to stay in his pajamas all day. Blue ones with green dinosaurs. Daddy put more socks on his feet at the breakfast table, and Max hated socks. He tried to take them back off, but Daddy told him no.
Bine came downstairs after breakfast with Max’s red snowsuit. When Daddy saw him he smiled, put his arms around his neck, and kissed him on the mouth. They held onto each other while Max painted in the fog of the sliding glass doors, practicing his M and his X. Camel humps. Criss-cross.
They went outside after everyone was bundled in their bibs and coats. Max had a sock monkey hat with earflaps that Grandma Debbie made. It was scratchy, but Bine made him keep it on. He told him his ears would freeze off if he didn’t wear his hat, and though Max thought Bine was probably lying, he kept it on anyway.
Daddy wrote Happy Birthday, Max in the snow with the special green snow paint he had in a ketchup bottle. Bine made a snowman and put the carrot in the wrong place.
“It go on his face, Bine!” Max told him, pulling out the carrot. It was stuck under the snowman’s stomach.
“My mistake,” Bine answered. He looked at Daddy and laughed.
Max made a snow angel, and when he sat up, Daddy and Bine were kissing again. He sighed. They did that too much.
~*~
After lunch, Daddy decided to bake Max a birthday cake, since Nana couldn’t bring his T-Rex one due to the snow.
“Have you ever successfully baked a cake?” Bine asked with a chuckle beneath his words. He sat at the kitchen table beside Max, reading the paper. The pages smelled good. Max touched them and got black ink on his hands.
Daddy bit down on his bottom lip. He didn’t say anything. Kept mixing.
“I want peasants,” Max said. He pushed away his juice box. “Happy bulfday to Max.”
Bine looked up. “Daddy got you a velociraptor. It’s chained up in the garage.”
A dinosaur! Max climbed out of his chair.
“Come here, Monster.” Daddy tapped a wooden spoon on the side of a mixing bowl. “Taste.”
Max really wanted to see his dinosaur, but he wanted to lick the spoon more.
~*~
The cake turned out crooked, but it tasted good. Daddy put blue icing all over it and drew green dinosaurs with a tube. Max’s cake matched his pajamas. He laughed when he saw it.
Uncle Michael was supposed to bring the candles, so they didn’t have any. Max didn’t notice, though. Daddy and Bine sang the Happy Birthday Song and swung him around the kitchen. They kissed his ear and his forehead, and Max was happier than he’d ever been.
~*~
Bine lied about the velociraptor. Instead of a real dinosaur, Max got a jungle land play set with 200 pieces. Thirty plastic dinosaurs. Mommies, daddies, and babies. He got new DVDs and T-Rex slippers. His presents were even better than a velociraptor, because they wouldn’t eat him.
Daddy and Bine wrestled again when Max was playing with his new toys in his room. Bine crouched down in Max’s doorway and told him to stay in his room...that he and Daddy were going to do some grown-up work in the bedroom.
“Oooookay,” Max said, knocking down a baby plateosaurus with a T-Rex. He thought Daddy and Bine must’ve loved each other a whole lot since they wrestled so much.
~*~
When night fell, Max took a bath with his dinosaurs while Daddy sat on the toilet seat and talked to Aunt Daphne on the phone.
Daddy said a lot of grown-up words when he talked to her. He laughed a lot and talked about Max and Bine. Told her Max was a really good boy and Bine was a really bad boy. Max didn’t understand, but he laughed anyway.
“What’re you laughing at?” Daddy asked, smiling. He said goodbye to Aunt Daphne, stood from the toilet seat, and walked over to grab Max’s towel. “Time to get out. You’re turning into a prune.”
“What’s a pwune?”
“Your fingers.”
Max looked at his fingers. They were white and wrinkly, but they didn’t hurt. “I okay.”
“Stand up.”
“No!”
“Max, don’t be difficult.” Daddy sighed and held out a Superman towel.
“Out, Monster,” Bine said, sticking his head in the bathroom door. “You’ll turn into a raisin and we’ll have to sell you to Sun-Maid.”
Max exhaled loudly, but stood. Bine and Daddy would miss him.
~*~
He wanted to put his dinosaur pajamas back on, but Daddy said they were stinky, so he had to put on his boring red ones. He got to wear his T-Rex slippers, though. They were soft and made his feet feel bouncy.
Daddy picked him up and carried him around the house on his back. They found Bine in the kitchen drinking grown-up soda out of a green bottle. Daddy sat Max on the countertop and got him a juice box to drink.
“I has some?” Max asked Bine. Little fingers grabbed the green bottle by the neck.
Bine took the bottle back. “Your nose’ll fall off.”
“Noooooo!” Max laughed. He sucked hard on his juice box straw and got choked. Bine patted his back.
“Don’t ever drink anything from the fridge that’s for grown-ups,” Daddy said. He walked over and wrapped an arm around Bine’s waist. “You’ll get very, very sick.”
“Just milk, waht-ull, and juice box.”
Daddy held up his hand for a high-five.
~*~
Bedtime was usually at eight, but Max fell asleep on Bine’s chest at seven-thirty, while he and Daddy were watching the news. The news made Max very, very sleepy.
When he awoke, it was dark. He was warm and the mattress under him was soft.
“He’s out for the night,” Daddy whispered.
Max was in the big bed. He smiled into the pillow.
Bine made a quiet sound and stroked Max’s head with his palm. Affectionate. Loving. “He’s…” Pause. A soft hum.
“Yeah.” Daddy kissed Max’s cheek. “He is.”
Bine and Daddy leaned across Max.
They kissed in the darkness.
Author: alphabet_magic
Rating: G / PG
Disclaimer: All characters and situations other than my own belong to CowLip, not me.
This story is inspired by my nephew, affectionately called “Little Monster.” He turned three yesterday, in the midst of a snowstorm.
The first snow of the year occurred on Max’s third birthday. He awoke at seven with dinosaur blankets tangled around his legs and one sock missing. Green marker prints were on his pillow, having rubbed onto the fabric from his sweaty palms. He yawned, breathing in so deeply he felt a funny feeling in his chest. He coughed.
It was warm in his room, but the window above his bed was cold and foggy. He stood on shaky feet and touched the pane with the tip of his finger. It made a mark. He smiled, teeth tiny, white, with spaces between every one.
“Mmmuh,” he whispered, sounding out the M of his name. M. Camel hump. He painted messily in the condensation.
After a moment, Max lost interest. He dropped back down on his bed and studied the guardrail. It was simple to escape. Hold on to the bedpost, throw a leg over, then the other one, and slide. He did it almost every morning, but every morning he got in trouble. It’s “dangerous” to be out of bed by yourself, his daddy would say, picking him up. Kissing his ear. But then Daddy would put him in bed with him and Bine. It was a big bed, high off the ground. The sheets were warm.
Max climbed over the guardrail.
Whenever he got up in the mornings, he would usually play dinosaurs with the plastic figures Bine bought him. Max liked dinosaurs. They were his favorite things besides dogs, but Bine wouldn’t buy him a dog.
This morning, though, was his birthday. He was three whole years old. He was going to have a T-Rex birthday cake and open presents. Max took off his remaining sock, threw it on the floor, and left his room.
Max was short for his age. Even on tiptoes he could only graze with his fingers the knob on Daddy and Bine’s door. He couldn’t turn it. Max sighed. He wiped his nose on his sleeve before pushing it up like he saw Bine do before he did something serious. Then he beat-beat-beat on the door with his fist.
“Helloooo!” He yelled. “I coming in!” Waited.
Max didn’t hear anything, so he held his ear to the door. It sounded like Daddy and Bine were wrestling again. He sighed. They did it all the time.
Once, Max had walked into the bedroom and had seen Daddy and Bine wrestling under the covers. He told them to stop, and Daddy said, “Oh my God!” and yelled a grown-up word. They came up from under the covers. Bine was laughing and Daddy was red-faced.
He got dressed and walked Max out of the bedroom, then crouched down to his level and told him that Daddy and Bine wrestle sometimes because they love each other. That if Max ever thought they were wrestling, he should go play in his room for a while because it was a private thing that only grown-ups could see.
Max hated it when they wrestled. It took a very, very long time.
He sat down outside Daddy and Bine’s bedroom and sang the Happy Birthday Song. Happy birthday to Maaa-aaax. Happy birthday to you.
After a while, he felt the floor thump. Feet landing after someone slid off the big bed. Someone was talking. Max pushed himself up and walked back over to the door. Beat-beat-beat.
“I awake!”
The floor thumped again, and then the door opened. Finally.
“What’re you doing, Monster?” Bine asked, bending over a little so he wasn’t so tall. He was only wearing underwear and his chest was sweaty. Shiny. A bit red.
Max looked up at Bine and exhaled. His breath was warm and came out in a loud puff. “Happy bulfday to Max,” he said, always tripping over his R’s.
“It’s your birthday?” Bine asked, crouching down some more. He pushed back a strand of light brown hair from Max’s face and narrowed his eyes. “You should’ve told me. I would’ve gotten you a present.”
“No peasants?”
“You should’ve told me.”
Max thought he was going to cry. He wiped his nose on his sleeve. Sniffed.
“Brian, shut up,” Daddy said, exiting the bathroom and coming up behind Bine. He was wearing the soft pants Max liked to touch. “Daddy and Brian got you the best present.” He picked up his son and swung him around. Kissed his cheek. “Happy birthday.”
Bine sometimes told lies. It was okay, though. Max held his arms out to him.
“Sleep good?” Bine asked, grabbing Max from Daddy’s arms. He squeezed him tightly against his chest and kissed his chin. He always kissed Max’s chin or forehead. Daddy kissed his cheek or ear. Max kissed both of them on the mouth because that’s where kisses were supposed to go.
Daddy and Bine did it all the time.
“I sleeped okay.”
“Didn’t get eaten by a dinosaur?”
Max laughed. “Noooo.” He wrapped his arms around Bine’s neck.
After Daddy finished changing the sheets, he asked Max if he had to pee. He did.
Bine put him down and Max had to get his special stool from under the bathroom sink. He had to climb up so he could pee into the potty. Daddy always made sure he did a good job and didn’t pee on the wall or on the floor. He got in trouble for that.
~*~
While Daddy showered, Bine took Max into Daddy’s painting room. Max loved that room because it had the big windows that looked out over the yard. He could see forever and ever, blue eyes wide, magic marker stained fingers pressed against the glass.
“Check it out,” Bine said, holding him up so he could see well.
Max gasped. Eight inches of snow covered the ground in white blankets, not a shard of dead grass poking up anywhere. Still more fell from the sky like feathers escaping a pillow.
“Snooooow,” Max whispered. Breath fogged up the window by his mouth.
“For your birthday.”
“I build snowmans!”
“We can throw snowballs at Daddy.”
Max laughed. “I has my pah-ty in the snow.”
Bine bounced him on his hip. “No party today. Too much snow.”
No party? Max buried his face in Bine’s shoulder. His skin smelled like soap. Like bath time. No party, no party. “Happy bulfday to Max,” he said. His voice was muffled against Bine’s skin.
~*~
Max got to stay in his pajamas all day. Blue ones with green dinosaurs. Daddy put more socks on his feet at the breakfast table, and Max hated socks. He tried to take them back off, but Daddy told him no.
Bine came downstairs after breakfast with Max’s red snowsuit. When Daddy saw him he smiled, put his arms around his neck, and kissed him on the mouth. They held onto each other while Max painted in the fog of the sliding glass doors, practicing his M and his X. Camel humps. Criss-cross.
They went outside after everyone was bundled in their bibs and coats. Max had a sock monkey hat with earflaps that Grandma Debbie made. It was scratchy, but Bine made him keep it on. He told him his ears would freeze off if he didn’t wear his hat, and though Max thought Bine was probably lying, he kept it on anyway.
Daddy wrote Happy Birthday, Max in the snow with the special green snow paint he had in a ketchup bottle. Bine made a snowman and put the carrot in the wrong place.
“It go on his face, Bine!” Max told him, pulling out the carrot. It was stuck under the snowman’s stomach.
“My mistake,” Bine answered. He looked at Daddy and laughed.
Max made a snow angel, and when he sat up, Daddy and Bine were kissing again. He sighed. They did that too much.
~*~
After lunch, Daddy decided to bake Max a birthday cake, since Nana couldn’t bring his T-Rex one due to the snow.
“Have you ever successfully baked a cake?” Bine asked with a chuckle beneath his words. He sat at the kitchen table beside Max, reading the paper. The pages smelled good. Max touched them and got black ink on his hands.
Daddy bit down on his bottom lip. He didn’t say anything. Kept mixing.
“I want peasants,” Max said. He pushed away his juice box. “Happy bulfday to Max.”
Bine looked up. “Daddy got you a velociraptor. It’s chained up in the garage.”
A dinosaur! Max climbed out of his chair.
“Come here, Monster.” Daddy tapped a wooden spoon on the side of a mixing bowl. “Taste.”
Max really wanted to see his dinosaur, but he wanted to lick the spoon more.
~*~
The cake turned out crooked, but it tasted good. Daddy put blue icing all over it and drew green dinosaurs with a tube. Max’s cake matched his pajamas. He laughed when he saw it.
Uncle Michael was supposed to bring the candles, so they didn’t have any. Max didn’t notice, though. Daddy and Bine sang the Happy Birthday Song and swung him around the kitchen. They kissed his ear and his forehead, and Max was happier than he’d ever been.
~*~
Bine lied about the velociraptor. Instead of a real dinosaur, Max got a jungle land play set with 200 pieces. Thirty plastic dinosaurs. Mommies, daddies, and babies. He got new DVDs and T-Rex slippers. His presents were even better than a velociraptor, because they wouldn’t eat him.
Daddy and Bine wrestled again when Max was playing with his new toys in his room. Bine crouched down in Max’s doorway and told him to stay in his room...that he and Daddy were going to do some grown-up work in the bedroom.
“Oooookay,” Max said, knocking down a baby plateosaurus with a T-Rex. He thought Daddy and Bine must’ve loved each other a whole lot since they wrestled so much.
~*~
When night fell, Max took a bath with his dinosaurs while Daddy sat on the toilet seat and talked to Aunt Daphne on the phone.
Daddy said a lot of grown-up words when he talked to her. He laughed a lot and talked about Max and Bine. Told her Max was a really good boy and Bine was a really bad boy. Max didn’t understand, but he laughed anyway.
“What’re you laughing at?” Daddy asked, smiling. He said goodbye to Aunt Daphne, stood from the toilet seat, and walked over to grab Max’s towel. “Time to get out. You’re turning into a prune.”
“What’s a pwune?”
“Your fingers.”
Max looked at his fingers. They were white and wrinkly, but they didn’t hurt. “I okay.”
“Stand up.”
“No!”
“Max, don’t be difficult.” Daddy sighed and held out a Superman towel.
“Out, Monster,” Bine said, sticking his head in the bathroom door. “You’ll turn into a raisin and we’ll have to sell you to Sun-Maid.”
Max exhaled loudly, but stood. Bine and Daddy would miss him.
~*~
He wanted to put his dinosaur pajamas back on, but Daddy said they were stinky, so he had to put on his boring red ones. He got to wear his T-Rex slippers, though. They were soft and made his feet feel bouncy.
Daddy picked him up and carried him around the house on his back. They found Bine in the kitchen drinking grown-up soda out of a green bottle. Daddy sat Max on the countertop and got him a juice box to drink.
“I has some?” Max asked Bine. Little fingers grabbed the green bottle by the neck.
Bine took the bottle back. “Your nose’ll fall off.”
“Noooooo!” Max laughed. He sucked hard on his juice box straw and got choked. Bine patted his back.
“Don’t ever drink anything from the fridge that’s for grown-ups,” Daddy said. He walked over and wrapped an arm around Bine’s waist. “You’ll get very, very sick.”
“Just milk, waht-ull, and juice box.”
Daddy held up his hand for a high-five.
~*~
Bedtime was usually at eight, but Max fell asleep on Bine’s chest at seven-thirty, while he and Daddy were watching the news. The news made Max very, very sleepy.
When he awoke, it was dark. He was warm and the mattress under him was soft.
“He’s out for the night,” Daddy whispered.
Max was in the big bed. He smiled into the pillow.
Bine made a quiet sound and stroked Max’s head with his palm. Affectionate. Loving. “He’s…” Pause. A soft hum.
“Yeah.” Daddy kissed Max’s cheek. “He is.”
Bine and Daddy leaned across Max.
They kissed in the darkness.