Friday, May 27, 2005

Fear and loathing

Sophie chooses the weirdest things to be afraid of. Until she was a year old, she had no fear of strangers or dogs or falling. However, if anyone in a 20 foot radius around her should happen to sneeze--jump back. She'd totally loose it.

When we're in a restaurant and a group of burly bikers come in the door, Sophie thinks it's great. In fact, she assumes they're pirates, and starts yelling "Ahoy there me harties!" and "Arg matey!" at them and trying to crawl over the booth to sit with them. But, during the course of the meal, if she should happen to hear a blender or god forbid, the scarryiest thing of all, the little foam maker on an espresso machine, she buries her head in my neck and literally starts shaking.

Yesterday while driving around, Sophie in the back and my good friend Christine and I in the front, we drove past a big water slide. The kind you walk up a gajillion steps in that tall murky tower to get to. Soph had had her eye on the slide for a while, thinking it looked pretty cool. I mentioned to Christine that I hated how the stairs up to water slides always have a kind of weird thin slime on them and how gross it feels on bare feet.

Sophie heard the word slime and fell to pieces. She asked me about 100 times, "There's no slime Mommy?" She just kept saying it over and over again. "No slime on the stairs? No slime?" I tried to reassure her again and again that no, there was no slime anywhere near her or the car or our house or our stairs. I don't know what freaked her out so badly. In fact, we were on our way to feed some horses, something she's wanted to do for ever, and she was so scared of random slime attacks that she started crying to go home.

I didn't even know that she knew what slime is. Maybe she doesn't. Maybe she thinks slime is some big animal or disease. Maybe she had some weird past life experience with slime. I'm totally baffled.

Today's best thing about being a mom:
We've started playing in the sprinklers now that the weather has warmed up. I LOVE running through the sprinklers.

Today's worst thing about being a mom:
Bedtime has become a total nightmare lately. She gets up about every 15 minutes for an hour after we lay her down. I don't know what to do about it.

4 comments:

NME said...

Slime? Have you made her watch too many episodes of You Can't Do That On Television?

I think they sell play slime - maybe that would allay her fear.

I totally get the blender thing. The other week when we were at a restaurant I had to change Noah. They had these insanely loud automatic flushing toilets. They were as loud as the ones on airplanes. Noah was SO scared. He was crying hysterically and shaking. I felt traumatized for him.

hazel said...

both of you - j-lady and nicole - that's awful. I hate seeing kids that upset. especially if they are mine.

I wonder about the slime...that's strange. in all seriousness, is it possible she saw something on TV? not that you are sitting her down to watch scary movies, but I know trent used to get freaked out over COMMERCIALS for scary movies.

and I fear that sophie and I can never meet, as I tend to sneeze at least 3 times an hour. that's a total bummer for me.

amandak said...

Zach is STILL totally terrified of our cat. The same cat he's been living with every day of his life. God forbid they end up passing on the stairs, he lets out one of THOSE screams, the ones that make mommies run, not walk, with pounding heart to see what horror is threatening their child. Oh yeah, it's just the cat.

Glenn Magas said...

re: Sleeping...

We just recently got our daughter to sleep on her own. Normally, mom or me would lay down with her till she falls asleep. Sometimes this would take an hour or so!!!

Now that she's two, we decided to do it and started 'boot camp' last week.

We put her into bed and tell her she'll sleep by herself and we'll kiss her nite-nite again later. This was tough the first two or three nights and she's come out of the room.

We put her back in bed and she cries even more than the initial tuck in. Begging, pleading, holding... We threaten to close the door and do for a few moments if she keeps coming out of bed.

Once she realizes the door will be closed, she quiets down.

If we check up on her while she's still awake, she cries... So we have forced ourselves not to be tempted to check up till we know she's asleep.

Last night was the third night in a row where she has not come out of the room. Thirty minutes and she's completely asleep.

She sleeps faster now that she doesn't have mom or me to play with in bed.

We can now do things around the house! :)

You have to be firm and don't give in! I hate closing the door and hearing her cry... but it worked and only took a few days.