Day 486 - Only Thing We Have to Fear...

One of the questions we asked our pediatrician was that we have noticed Emma finds the oddest things scary. It started a few months ago when I played a Classical Baby dvd. As the main titles played, I noticed that Emma looked a little tense. As the little baby conductor struggled to get on his podium, Emma backed up a little. When the baby conductor raised his baton and the animal orchestra began to play, Emma let out a scream.

This behavior was odd because the kids watched these dvds before, but Emma never had this reaction before. I tried the dvd a few time more, and Emma always had the fearful reaction. I finally thought I would try to reenact the main titles by dressing up like a baby, but Emma found that even more frightening. Perhaps the sight of me in diapers was a little too horrific.

More recently, I had the movie Kung-Fu Panda playing on television. There was nothing violent on screen -- just a big panda bear trying to get up off the floor. Emma found this behavior to be disturbing and began to cry. To determine whether or not she was afraid of a panda or a fat person getting off the ground, I asked our overweight neighbor to visit. Long story short, let's just say Emma could be afraid of a panda bears, fat people getting off the ground, or fat people sitting on Daddy.

When I recalled these incidences to our doctor, our doctor shrugged it off as just a phase that will pass. Most likely, Emma will forget about it and in a few months she won't be afraid of these things anymore. The doctor said that if Emma starts to cry about something in a fearful manner, we should just distract her with something else. I explained to the doctor that I have tried this before with Emma. The doctor asked what I distracted her with. I told her severed heads.

I just hope Emma doesn't turn out to be a wimpy kid like I was. When I was a kid, I was afraid of harmless things like Disneyland parades, Snuffleupagus, and trickle-down economics. She's only 16 months year old so who really knows how she will be when she gets older. I just hope she's level-headed and maintains a reasonable sense of things she should be afraid of like strangers, fire, and movies directed by Alan Smithee.