The other day J was on the phone in the bedroom when the boys started leading me on a new game they were developing. It consisted of sneaking around the house until one or the other of them shouted “Oh no! A mean troll!”. At which point, we’d all yell and run back to a bedroom that had been designated as “our house.”

All things considered, it was a pretty fun game. Once the shout went up, there was no telling which way the kids would run. They looked a bit like keystone cops – bouncing off me, the furniture, and each other until they managed to remember where “our house” was.

It was cute enough that I thought I’d try to bring their momma into it. So, the next time our sneaking brought us close enough to the bedroom that we could hear her, I whispered “wait! what’s that noise?”

They both stopped, looking around.

“Is that the mean troll?”

C caught on first, and a big smile spread across his face. “Yeah!”

With his little brother in tow, we quietly snuck up on the bedroom. As soon as he saw his momma, C shouted “The Mean Troll!” We all shouted and made our pinball way back to the bedroom. We repeated this process enough more times that J finally snuck off into the bathroom to continue her phone conversation in peace.

As if the Mean Troll could get away that easily. We easily tracked her down to where she was standing by the sinks.

The next time we tried it, however, the bathroom door was closed. As C reached to open it, the Mean Troll pushed it open with a yelled “hah!”

Both boys screamed. C, being closest, almost fell over backwards. N (who just recently turned 2) looked around frantically. Seeing his momma, he started to run to her with his arms open. Before he got to her, however, he apparently remembered that she was the Mean Troll. He screamed again and ran away, tears streaming down his face. He was really scared. Why he didn’t run to me, I don’t know.

At any rate, his momma quickly caught up to him and gathered him up in her arms.

“Not Mean Troll!” He said, glaring at me and his brother. “Just momma.”

C, of course, had recovered. He was all too happy to take up the argument, but I shushed him.

After all, I told him, sometimes you don’t want your momma to be a Mean Troll. Sometimes, it’s better if she’s Just Momma.