Mr. Baseball Monster

Sean is rather fond of books, though the specific books in question do fluctuate some. He was into the Frog Band books for a while, and they've fallen out of rotation (and now back in); lately he has been into the Frances books by Russell Hoban (about a young badger), the Froggy books (by Jonathan London), and Dr. Seuss again.

Over a year ago, we ran across a book called "Mr. Baseball" - about a boy (about 7 or 8) whose five-year-old brother, Eli, insists on tagging along to Little League (which doesn't enroll five-year-olds). The older brother recognizes Eli's persistence and nicknames him "Mr. Baseball" (after explaining that he'd first called him "Mr. Chewing Gum" and then "Mr. Monster" for his habit of getting figuratively stuck on things (first, getting stuck on the older brother, i.e., following him around; then, getting stuck on monster toys; "Mr. Monster" is also a book). Between the baseball/the monsters and the not-all-that-much-older-than-Sean boys (and maybe especially since one of the boys likes to assume other identities), the books were quite appealing to Sean, and they're fun to read, so it's not surprising that Sean would remember them well after we'd returned them to the library.

And it's not just reading the books that Sean has enjoyed. Eli, "the big brother" (the narrator, who is not named in either book), Roberta (a friend and teammate of the big brother), and Roberta's mom have all become characters or identities for Sean to use and assign. Sean sometimes describes himself as Eli, sometimes even correcting us: "Sean is not Sean. Sean is Eli." Sometimes he adds, "Sean is not Eli. Sean is Mr. Baseball." A few times, he has even put a couple of his dinosaurs into closet spaces the way that Eli - in "Mr. Monster" - does; he certainly continues to repeat lines from the books and occasionally weaves himself (or other characters of his) into the stories.

This led us to realize that, in a way, we've created a monster of our own: Mr. Baseball Monster.