Our Imagination

Christian has started to use his imagination BIG TIME. Today we were working one of his many puzzles...this one happens to have an animal for each letter of the alphabet. We got to "M" which has a monkey and the phone rang so I went to our bedroom to get it. Afterwards Christian comes in and says "Mommy, a monkey is right there!" pointintg into space.I said "there is? where?" He pointed into the same space again. I proceeded to tickle him and say "The only monkey I see is a little boy named Christian!!" He of course found that to be so funny and we went back to his room to finish the puzzle. When we got to the letter "O" He said: "Mommy, there is an octopus in my bed...RUN" and we ran down the hall. I thought it was all so cute and funny. Tonight we were using our imagination in a not so fun way...I could not get him to bed b/c of the "monsters" that he kept talking about. He saw a little boy on TV the other day who was scared of monsters in his room. We talked about how they were'nt real and I pointed out how the little boy's mommy and daddy kept him safe. It obviously stayed with him b/c two days later I had to spend 10 minutes talking about the monsters that were'nt there. I tried a little of everything trying to calm & reassure him. After leaving and going back in 3 times I finally left him. I'm hoping we don't get a late night visitor that is scared...any tips from other monster stories and scared toddlers?