Do You Know the Muffin Man?

For the past couple of weeks, the muffin man has been on my three-year-old's mind. Now, I don't really know the muffin man. Do you?

Camille, though, seems to know him pretty well. And is frightened of him. It started as casually as a simple statement, something along the lines of, "the muffin man is not very nice." I didn't think anything of it, "Oh this must be a silly game that the kids play at school."

That is, until a few days ago when I went in to wake Camille up for school, and she was shaking and told me that she had a bad dream. "The muffin man was trying to get me," she said. Again I asked who the muffin man was and she replied that he was not very nice. 

Now I was getting spooked. Has that ever happened to you? Something your kid says or does that makes your skin bumpy? For me, it's happened when Clara's been on the changing table staring into a corner of the room, the corner maybe slightly above and over my shoulder, and nothing you do to get her to look away works. "What is she looking at? Oh my God, there's a ghost behind me. Okay, just be calm." I always do the glance back while trying to play it cool.

Anyway, I was getting spooked. Who was this muffin man? Is he an imaginary friend of sorts? 

So I did some research the other night. It's a rhyme! Oh! Is that all???!!! I guess he was also mentioned in Shrek a few times, but nothing more than a casual reciting of his rhyme was done by Gingy. So what the hell?

First, I was a bit upset with myself that I did not know this rhyme. I don't mean to brag, but I know a lot of rhymes and regularly recite them to my babies. This muffin man annoyed me. 

Second, I was determined to find out who put this muffin man into my child's head. Was it a friend? Her teacher at school? Here, you have to be careful. I've realized that while Camille asks lots of "why" questions, she still doesn't really get the "because" part. Needless to say, I've been in many circular conversations with her, that have gone on for about five minutes before I've realized that I'm not getting anywhere - slow learner, I am. The trick is to NOT ask her any "why" questions.

So yesterday morning, I went into Camille's room to wake her up for school, ready to kick this muffin man to the curb.

I asked her if she had a good night's sleep, and the first thing she said? "I had a dream about the muffin man, and he was nice to me, mommy!"

Damn muffin man.