Fears

We've heard of toddlers having crazy fears of random things, but had never experienced it until this week. Mateo has been somewhat afraid of trees falling for awhile, as in getting freaked out this winter when it was stormy and the trees were blowing around. Then, this week, we had a freak thunderstorm that started with crazy winds out of nowhere. One minute, it was calm, and the next, I was at work wondering if we were about to have a tornado.

Sacha and the kids and Apa were hanging out at home when the winds started up and Mateo got really freaked out. The adults decided to close all the curtains to help Mateo calm down, because he was getting really upset and worried that the trees were going to fall over outside. That worked at the time, but the whole experience must have been traumatic for the little guy.

Enter this morning, when the day dawned gray and windy and the trees were blowing around. Mateo took one look at this as we were sitting down to breakfast and demanded that we close all the blinds. We said no. He went from zero to tantrum in two seconds and spent about the next half an hour crying and asking for us to close the curtains over and over and over. He was so scared that he was actually trembling. We tried reassuring him, tried reasoning, tried telling him he was safe, tried giving him a timeout to reset, tried taking him outside to see that everything was fine. Nothing worked.

Finally, Sacha had the brilliant idea to pretend to get scared herself and need lots of cuddles from Mateo to feel better. They cuddled up in his room and he gave her lots of cuddles and that seemed to help him snap out of it. However, he's still quite wary of going into our living room, which is the main part of our house. Our books and Dr. Google both say to reassure him but not to give in to the fears, so that's what we're trying to do. We're going to a birthday party this afternoon that is outside in a park with lots of trees, and it's still pretty windy out there, so we'll see how that goes! Poor guy. It's rough to be two and a half sometimes.

It's kind of funny timing, because Sacha and I were just talking about toddler fears a few days ago. I had taken the kids to the zoo with some friends and Mateo had announced on the way home that he was scared of lions and that tigers were very scary, too.

In better news, Sacha and Mateo both got haircuts today and they look very cute. On the way home, we were telling Mateo how cute he looked and he said, seriously, "Mommy, I am very handsome with my new hair cut."

We also dropped by his potential new Spanish immersion preschool for next fall and we liked it. We talked to the owner/main teacher and Mateo got to play in the space for awhile. He seemed to like it and we did, too. So, we are in for two mornings a week! We hope this will be a great new step for him in the fall. There are lots of huge windows, so hopefully he'll be over this fear of trees and wind by then!