Dragons. We've got dragons.

Last night as I embarked upon the 4 hour journey that is Gavin's bedtime routine, he reached his hands way up in the air and pointed to the two vents in his room.

"Air!" he exclaimed. "Air in there! Air comes out!"

"Thats right." I told him. "You have two air vents in your room." (we're working on numbers so everything must be seen as an opportunity to count)

"Air up there! Dragons, too! Air and dragons up there!"

"Dragons?" I asked him.

"Dragons." he told me. "Dragons no hurt Gavin. No hurt mommy, too."

Good to know the dragons are of the NMNG (no mommy no Gavin)- hurting variety considering we were the ones lying just under the two air vents where the dragons apparently live.

"Dragons eat nuggets and french fries. Nuggets and fries." He said as he leaned over on his bed to put his chin in his hands and then he let out a sigh and rolled his eyes upward to look at the foreboding air vents.

We then turned out the lights and snuggled up on the floor together because 1. Gavin will no longer sleep in his bed and 2. Gavin will no longer fall asleep unless someone is right next to him for him to breathe his hot toddler breath all over.

This is the first time Gavin has ever verbally expressed him imagination. Up until now, language has been all business. I have no idea where he came up with dragons in the air vents. I watch very little tv with him sans the occasional episode of Brother Bear, Oobie, or the Real World. I could totally understand if his first stint in imagination-land revolved around an empathetic bear or an incredibly well-manicured hand or even a crazy, pill-popping, drunk anorexic, but dragons? How did he come up with that? Since I'm only used to Gavin speaking of what is "real" and am totally unsure of how he could have come up with dragons (unless hello! There really are dragons in the air vents and perpaps they told Gavin what they are), I have to admit that I kept one eye on the air vents while he slowly drifted off to sleep- curling and uncurling his tiny fist around my arm until finally it went limp and I knew I could crawl ever so quietly and quickly- very quickly... maybe the whole "no hurt mommy" line was a trap- out of the room.

I came down stairs and told the husband to call the exterminator because apparently we have dragons in our heating and cooling system.

"Yeah," I told the husband "they won't hurt Gavin and mommy but I'm not so sure about you and Grace."

He didn't say anything. Perhaps he was gripped with the terrifying fear that there were dragons in the vents and they were probably going to eat him tonight.

"Well," he finally said "I'm not worried about Grace because she'll probably eat them before they get a chance to eat her."

"True." I said as I walked away "Sucks to be you, then."