Thursday, February 7, 2008

Irrational Fears?

I'm never sure what my children are going to get out of a movie.

Years ago when Nemo came out we still lived at our condo and had a pool. Every time we went to the pool after the girls saw the movie they would peer in apprehensively and ask...Are there any divers in there? They had no fear of sharks, barracudas, angler fish , or whales, they simple wanted to know if there were any divers to steal them away. Each time I would assure them that unlike the ocean we could see the bottom of the pool and no there were no divers.

Every time my kids see Wizard of Oz Fred is very sure every cloud zooming through the Las Vegas sky is going to spawn a tornado. Weather has always freaked her out because there is NO WAY for her to control it. I've told them a million times Las Vegas isn't tornado country and they're fine. They saw on the news last night all those terrible storms that caused all the devastating tornados and Fred turned to me with a glance outside and wide eyes. Before she got a word out I once again reassured her that there was no danger of that happening to our house. Floods and earthquakes absolutely, but not a tornado.

So this brings us to yesterday when traumatic things happened to George. Moga dug out Bugs Life and was excited to watch it. I don't think George has seen it in memorable history so she was excited too. The movie went without a hitch but later in the afternoon she wanted to walk to the front door over our old wood floor but insisted on being carried I wasn't into the hysterical, truly terrified fit so I just carried her. Left to her own screaming devices she would walk with her back to the wall and hands spread out holding on. The only thing I could get out of her was something about bugs. The Bugman had come earlier in the day but they've come once a month for 2 years now. Today the same fit happened every time she was presented with the obligation to walk on the wood floor to the front door. Finally after hearing the shrieks multiple times I decided to get to the bottom of the fear. I sat down on the floor and asked what the problem was. She lept into my lap, pointed at the floors and in shuddering sobs explained that she didn't want to fall through the cracks...no really. The bugs fell through the cracks and the bird tried to eat them. Apparently it was rather traumatizing. I took her little toe and poked it at a crack and the screams were horrific! I tried to explain she is much larger than a bug and the cracks are way too small but as we left for St.George (where I am now) she insisted her Daddy carry her she wanted to see Grandma!!!!!!!

So who knows what fears the next movie adventure will bring. Until then watch out for those cracks, you might just fall in!

3 comments:

-Shudokan Jon said...

I only have carpet and linoleum so George will be safe at Grammy's house, please let her know that.
Wish I could fear falling thru a crack! Oh well, please hug George extra for Grammy and little Uncle Jon. xoxoxox

Hillary said...

That's the saddest story. I'll watch out for those cracks for sure.

Susan said...

And these movies are G rated? Yikes. No wonder my mother wouldn't let me see a PG movie until I was 13