Nora has a book called Where is the Green Sheep. In it, we are introduced to many types of sheep: red sheep, blue sheep, sheep in a bed, sheep in a bath. A near sheep and a far sheep. A scared sheep and a brave sheep. I tell Nora she is the brave sheep.
Nora likes a bit of danger — jumping off of high places into her daddy’s arms and going down the slide on her stomach. But she wasn’t always so brave. Little more than a year ago, her biggest fears were everyday objects.
I remember reading an article about cheap ways to entertain your kids. The writer said the best present her daughter ever got was a box full of cotton balls. Sounded good to me. One night, to stave off boredom, I pulled a bag of cotton balls from the closet and presented them for Nora’s entertainment. She shrieked in terror.
When she was about eighteen months old, she got a feather boa for Christmas. It was six months of gentle exposure therapy before she would willingly touch it.
And then there was the big, bad mop bucket at daycare. Her teacher was carrying her through the hallway and bent over near the mop bucket to retrieve something. Nora got so scared, she crawled up the teacher’s body and clung to her head for safety.
While I’m relieved she has outgrown the fear of common household objects, it’d be nice if she was a bit more tentative when it comes to things like perching atop a beach ball that is precariously nestled on a mound of blankets on our bed. Alas, she has no fear of the hardwood floor beneath her.