All of our kids have gone through stages where they are scared of something and it is interesting to me what those things are and how they are different for every kid. Last night we (or should I say I, Daryl was not all that excited about it) decided to go on a walk. It was a beautiful evening and I thought it would be fun to get the kids out of the house for awhile. We got the wagon and stroller out of the garage and headed out. Rachel started out in the wagon and we were not even out of the driveway yet and she started freaking out about all the little things that were in the wagon. Now the wagon was in the garage so there were little pieces of dirt and grass and yes some occasional bugs. The bugs were so tiny that you could barely see them, but she managed to find almost all of them. Once I had most of them out I just started telling her that everything else she managed to find was grass. That seemed to appease her.
We were about halfway through our walk, Allison has now joined Rachel in the wagon, when Allison starts getting concerned that the sun is going down and we better get home. Now it is only about 7:00pm at this time and still very light outside. I just tried to ignore her comments for awhile but she continued on, "Mom we better go home it is getting dark outside" is all I heard for about 5 minutes. Even after I assured her that it was fine and we had plenty of time before it got dark she still thought we should head for home. It finally took me telling her that we were headed for home before she rested her case. Daryl and I talked about whether she will be the same way about her curfew as a teenager. Will she say "I better get home it is almost dark" at the age of 16? Probably not, but with her there is always hope.
After arriving home way before dark may I add, it was bathtime. I piled all the kids into the tub and everyone got clean. Since it was almost 8:00pm by the time they got out and close to bedtime I decided to blow dry Allison and Rachel's hair. As I sat on the couch doing this Tyler just watched me. He basically did not take his eyes off the blow dryer. While the blow dryer was turned off he crawled over to the couch where I was sitting. I then turned it back on to dry Rachel's hair and started playing with him and turning the dryer on his hair for a few seconds. I got these looks of I am not sure if I like that. He tolerated me doing that for about 10 seconds and then it was full blown crying. He just sat on the floor and watched the dryer and cried. This is the same thing he does with the vacuum. The minute he sees the vacuum come into the room he just sits and stares at it and if it gets anywhere close to him he starts crying like crazy. Now if Allison did that I might have some sympathy since she did have a run in with the vacuum at about his age and still has a scar from it, but I figure Tyler will just have to get used to it. Okay so I am not that mean. I do put him in the chair while I run the vacuum with one of his sisters, that seems to appease him for now.
I am sure the day will come when they pretend like they are not scared of anything and will think they are invincible, so I should probably cherish these scared moments when the only thing that makes them feel better is being in mommy or daddy's arms.
