Death of The Shadow Man

Corbin had been doing really well at staying his room all night for a while. Then a couple weeks ago he started coming over to our room in the middle of the night sometimes. He kept telling me there was a "Shadow Man" in his closet. I had no idea what he was talking about. I tried making sure I left the doors on the closet all the way closed to keep that Shadow Man inside but he still kept talking about him.

And he really believed it. I'd hear him running to our room - really running as fast as he could, panting, terrified that the Shadow Man was going to get him. He started taking a toy light saber and Nerf gun to bed with him to protect himself, set up "scary" looking stuffed animals like a bulldog and bears and panthers at the foot of his bed, and made up more and more elaborate routines of all this crazy stuff I had to say to scare away the Shadow Man and bad dreams. I'd yell "Go away! You're not welcome here! If you come in Corbin's room I'll make you smell Alora's stinky diaper and eat brussell sprouts and do Corbin's homework for a month and scrub the toilets!" Ok, maybe I threw in the scrub the toilets part for myself. But no matter what we did or said that Shadow Man just kept coming back. Persistent fool.

There were nights he wouldn't come and other times he would. I had tried looking in Corbin's closet with him and talking to him about it but couldn't figure it out so I assumed it was just one of those weird imaginary monsters kids make up or something he had heard about at school. I went along with all his protective measures and we cuddled him when he'd come to our room. What else could we do?

Yesterday he was talking to me about this Shadow Man and said something very odd, that the Shadow Man wasn't very tall and had no arms or legs. Really?? Where the hell was he getting this stuff? A short man with no arms or legs? I tried very hard to take it seriously but couldn't keep from laughing just a little which of course made him mad. I told him that was good news because how hard could it really be for me to catch an armless and legless man. Never mind that I thought this had no basis in reality. I had given up on convincing him that the Shadow Man did not exist long ago.

So I figured I would come up with some elaborate trap to set for this Shadow Man and somehow convince Corbin that it worked and be done with it once and for all. I was sick of this Shadow Man scaring my kid and interrupting the little sleep I do get. So I had been thinking about it today but hadn't come up with any concrete plans yet. Then this evening I was getting Corbin ready for bed. We had read our book, brushed his teeth, tucked him under his covers, and secured the closet doors. I sat down in the rocking chair in the room to sing him his goodnight song and all of a sudden he jumps up in bed yelling "There he is!! There's the Shadow Man!!!!!!" (this is worthy of several exclamation points because he was seriously freaking out)

So I look at the closet door and wouldn't you know, there's a shadow on there about 3 1/2 feet tall; slender rectangular "body" with a round "head" on top. No arms or legs of course. Being the (somewhat) rational adult that I am I realized immediately that this Shadow Man had been a cheap imposter all along, nothing but a shadow made by something... but what?? So I start moving around things in Corbin's room and it turns out it was the side of one of the little chairs that goes with his table and chairs. That explains why the Shadow Man only appeared on some nights. The chair had to be at a certain angle and location between his night light and the closet door for that shadow to show up. And turns out me closing the closet doors to keep him in was just making it worse since it made a place for the shadow to show up.

I moved the chair and showed Corbin what was making that shadow and he seemed so relieved. Hopefully that's the death of the Shadow Man for good now. May he rest in Shadow Hell.