I made a pact to myself that I would never instill any fear that I have on to my child. By that I mean, that any phobia I have, I would never project that to Jack. Anyone that knows me, knows that I have a phobia of bugs. The occasional spider that happens to be on our wall disgusts me to no end. Before child, I would freak out at the sight of seeing a bug at home. Poor Brian would hear cries of " Oh my god!!! Get that thing out of here. Get it! GET IT!!! How I would love to still do that now.
However, we do have a kid. And I think there is nothing more frightening for your child to see than your mom jumping up and down and have the look of death on her face. With this, comes Sunday's early evening story;
Dinnertime, and I went to the kitchen. Brian and Jack were in the living room eating dinner. I went to open the fridge, when I saw some creature the size of Mount Everest on the fridge door. I didn't want to look at it, I didn't want to see what it was. A Cricket? A grasshopper? It looked weird, and it looked foreign. My first instinct was to do the usual song and dance of "Oh my god, get it GET IT!!" But I very calmly said ,
Brian, can you come into the kitchen please? I am being very calm about this because there is some sort of bug on the refridgerator.
My feet didn't move and Brian, the man of the house, went up close to it ( he really is a brave man cause that thing could have jumped on his face) swatted it and threw it away.
What would have happened if this bug was here when Brian was not? And what if Jack walked into the kitchen and saw me with the zombie look staring at the bug? I would want to think that I am braver than I think. And that I can handle something as small as a stupid bug. Perhaps the next thing to teach Jack is this :
Take this shoe, swat the bug, scoop it up and put it in the garbage.
I'll let you know how the lesson goes.
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