I was reminded of this post from my archives when I naively took my 3yo to Party City in search of a Batman costume. As soon as we stepped through the door we were confronted with ghouls and goblins and giant inflatable headless horsemen. I had to carry my son while covering his eyes until we could get out of there. Yikes! And that’s not the only thing my kids are scared of…
Boo on the Halloween PJs
Sometimes as a parent, you make mistakes. You let your kid drink Gatorade and he bounces off the walls for 2 hours. You let him have one last cup of milk at night and he wets the bed. Or you buy him spider pajamas for Halloween and then discover he’s deathly afraid of arachnids. And you make him wear the PJs anyway.
I can’t get a handle on the random fears my kids have. When Miles was a baby, he was terrified of:
– Old people wearing Santa hats
– Mean ladies in cartoons
– The vacuum cleaner and the blender
– Monsters
Then he got older and became afraid of:
– The dark
– The poster of tropical fish on his wall (He says it looks like it’s moving)
– Different foods touching (I really thought we’d dodged this bullet and I’d never have to buy one of those divided plates. WRONG!)
My second-born, Riley, is terrified of:
– The vacuum cleaner and the blender
– Bugs
(Not including the first 12 mos. of his life when he was afraid of keeping food down, sleeping through the night, and just about everyone but his mom. Especially old people.)
The bug thing started when he spotted a giant, hairy spider one of our neighbors had hung on their porch for Halloween. I admit, an enormous black, 8-legged, red-eyed spider waving in the breeze is enough to scare anyone. But Riley would begin whining and shaking whenever he was within a few YARDS of this thing.
Then at home, he would point to every speck on the floor (and in our house, there are lots) and say, “Bug!” Even if it was a leaf, an old raisin or a clump of dog hair. (Actually, a bug might be LESS gross.)
Too bad for him I’d already bought his Halloween PJs at Old Navy. Luckily, he doesn’t seem to mind those spiders too much. Miles got skeleton PJs that glow in the dark. How cool is that? And he thought so, too, at least until 4 a.m. the first night he wore them and he woke up glowing and ran into our room. “I’m scared of my jammies,” he said. And they’ve been stuffed in the back of the drawer ever since. Sigh.
Looks like I’m 0-for-0 on the Halloween PJs. So what random things are YOUR kids afraid of?
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
My kids love their glow in the dark PJs. My son says I don’t have to turn the light on for him to climb into the top bunk because he can see by the light of his skeleton. 😉 But they are scared of zombies and the sound of public toilets flushing. Sigh.
Ha! I agree with them. Some of those toilets ARE frightening!
My oldest used to be deathly afraid of people dressed up like characters. The Chuckie Cheese mouse, Mickey Mouse, Donald, even Snow White. She was terrified. So much so, I had to make her a vow that if any character ever got close to her, I would punch them in the face. We came close a few times.
My eldest is afraid of owls, but only at night. And only the idea of owls coming out once it is dark. I have to reassure him that owls don’t come anywhere near our house but it’s always the first question he asks when it gts dark, “Are the owls out now?” He can’t explain why – they’re just scary.
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