Friday, October 15, 2010

Irrational Fears

I've said it before. The Little Buddy is deathly afraid of flies. Especially if he can't get away from them. Especially if he's in his high chair. When a fly graces that kid with its presence I have half a mind to stand on the front lawn and announce into a loud speaker that no one is murdering the toddler. His face contorts into various horrified looks and he screams shrieks with the force of 10,000 antelope being simultaneously maimed by a pack of lions. Rabid lions. Irrational, petrified fear of flies, that kid has.

The Rock Star used to be terrified of roosters. And wolves. And especially the idea of roosters and wolves in the same room as him. We tried explaining to him that if there were both roosters and wolves in his room, pretty soon there would be only wolves but this was hardly a comfort.

Why my boys decided to develop irrational fears of poultry and flies is beyond me. I'm just glad we don't live on a farm where both would be abundant.

So here's my question: what strange or irrational things have you or your children been afraid of? Let's all have a good laugh. Because if I can't start laughing about Matthew's fear of flies I'm going to tear my hair out.

What? It's been a bad fly season.

13 comments:

  1. Spiders. Even today, as a nearly-30 year old woman. I did not do laundry for a week when my husband announced there were spiders hanging out in our basement. He eventually ran out of underwear and went and got a "bug bomb" to kill all the spiders. Problem solved. :-) He has clean underwear again.

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  2. um...grass. Here in West Texas, when this certain grass gets tall, it breaks off the top and blows around. If you can picture it, it kind of looks like a little mini-tumbleweed. My daughter has been TERRIFIED of this stupid grass as long as I can remember. She is almost three. If I pick it up and show it to her she is ok. If I give it to her to hold, she is okay. But if it is blowing around all willy nilly, she completely loses it. It's like she thinks it is alive or something. And HELLO we live in West Texas, where the wind doth blow A LOT.

    ....maybe the Little Buddy is a germaphobe and doesn't like the idea of the little gross poop-eating bugs on him. Oh wait, he eats dirt. Never mind.

    Love your blog! I dont comment much but I am always reading!! And laughing!

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  3. Cats. I mean they are scary (like wolves)... so it makes sense... but they are all over the place here and sometimes they come running from nowhere and I can't handle it! They are totally unpredictable and moody and rude and I am terrified of them!

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  4. Spiders. And most insects really. Anything with more than 4 legs bigger than, well, a ladybug. And snakes. And earthworms. I HATE earthworms. (It's a real problem when I work in the garden that I have to call my husband to come rescue me every time I dig one up.) Basically anything with no legs/fins/flippers or more than 4 horrifies me. It's a wonder nobody ever invites me camping. As a side note, I sort of wish Peter would learn some fear... the other day we watched him lean over and poke a bee with his pointer finger.

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  5. When my daughter was 4, I had to tear the Humpty Dumpty picture out of the Mother Goose book because it scared her so bad. She wouldn't stop screaming until it was in the trash can outside the house.

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  6. Jeremy has a crazy fear of daddy long legs. And I researched them they are NOT the most poisoness spiders. Any way on our first year of marriage I hear Jeremy scream for me in the shower I go in there to see what is wrong and he is huggin the wall yelling 'kill it'. It was just a poor daddy long leg trying to share his shower. Bri-guy had night terrors once about spiders right after we watched jamungi. :)

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  7. You brother was terrified of your dad's SWAT team riot mask. He was fine if we put it on him, but heaven help your ears if Dad put it on. He could even watch Dad put it on and then go postal! I'm sure it didn't help that we would do it often to show people how postal he would actually get! He was also afraid of ET. He had a calendar once that had ET on one month. He had hung a piece of notebook paper over the picture. One night when I was putting him to bed I took the paper down. He freaked out and made me put it back. As for you....I don't remember any total irrational fears other than you hated grass when you were a toddler. You would stay where ever I put you so that you didn't have to touch it.

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  8. When I was little I was scared that witches & racooms lived under my bed. It was a day bed so honestly it was big enough under there for lots of things to live. I remember literally leaping off it in the middle of the night to run to my parents room, or just laying there too scared of a hand (or paw lol) grabbing my ankles to even jump off the bed.

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  9. My 3 year old daughter is afraid of small animals. Large ones are FINE. Horses, Labradors. Fine. The small ones scare the living daylights out of her. Kitties, Pomeranians. You know. The vicious ones. And don't get me started on washing her hair in the shower. I have to take the shower head down. Because if I don't she runs around the bathtub and nearly kills herself. So I aim the shower head at her and she stands in the corner of the bathtub with her hands in the air, face plastered against the door, screaming like one of those girls in the horror movies that is dying in some brutal and inhumane way. I have to walk away sometimes. I see you know what I mean. :)
    Thanks for your blog. Both of mine were adopted and I can SO relate...

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  10. My 32 year old daugher is *still* irrationally afraid of dogs. Even the therapy dogs at the hospitals that she works at freak her out.

    My 30 year old son is *still* irrationally afraid of spiders. He screams when he sees them and asks his wife to kill them. She doesn't believe in killing life (although she thinks abortion is fine, go figure) so she carefully catches the spider in a glass and takes it outside.
    Sigh. Sometimes I think all of them are nuts. I personally fear people with pierced or split tongues. Shiver....creepy!

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  11. I was terrified of flies too. When I was really little one got tangled in my hair and pulled my hair up while it was trying to free itself. That's probably why. I don't know what little buddies problem is though ;-) Ha ha ha...

    Ana is afraid of snails but loves flies

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  12. My best friend's daughter used to be TERRIFIED of string...you know the little thread hanging off your shirt? It would cause bloodcurdling screaming, heard for miles around (no exaggeration!) She still has some odd ones...but thankfully she's mostly over the fear of thread

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  13. I cant remember any I had, although Im sure there were some, but I do remember Annas. She had a very reacurring nightmare about the "nightmare chicken", he had black feathers and red eyes and was gigantic. He would chase her and she would wake up so scared. The nightmare chicken made her cautious around real chickens and of course she had a mean big sister that would try and get her worked up when it came to chickens. Our family still pesters her sometimes if we come across a picture of a chicken that resembles the nightmare chicken, nice family.
    Your comment on what would you do? tickled me by the way, especially the one about Troy, hehe.

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