Up to this point, I think we've been pretty lucky on the whole "scared of things" issue. Gabe has not had too much trouble with it, and Norah hasn't really been verbal enough to truly express her fears. Gabe doesn't much care for total darkness, and Norah obviously didn't like to be alone in her room (proven by the fact that she stopped shrieking through the night as soon as she and Gabe shared a room). We've never had monsters under the bed or bogeymen in the closet or anything like that to deal with. They wake up from nightmares from time to time and we have to talk them off the ledge, but that's about it.
Or, rather, that WAS about it. Earlier in the week, Gabe had his first of what I have to assume will be many scaredy cat moments.
It was naptime. About thirty minutes after I put them down, Gabe came down the stairs and informed me that he needed to pee. Like usual. I was trying to nap on the couch, so I just turned my head and said, "Go pee, and go back to bed!" over my shoulder and tried to go back to sleep. After a bit, I heard him go back upstairs.
But the damage was already done. I had dozed off before he came down, and now that I was fully awake again, there was no going back to sleep. About fifteen minutes later, I got up. As I walked by the stairs, something caught my eye. Gabe was sitting on the top stair in the dark.
"Gabe, go back to bed. Go to sleep. No more noise, just sleep." I instructed and walked into the office. Two steps into the office and I hear bitter sobs coming from the top of the stairs. I back out of the office and look up the stairs.
"What's wrong?" I ask in the most caring voice I can muster through my annoyance at having naptime, once again, ruined.
"I-I-I'm-m-m scared," he stammered.
"Scared? Scared of what?"
"The-the-the c-c-candle!"
"What? The candle?"
"Yuh-yes!"
"A candle. You're scared of a candle?"
"Yes!"
"OK. Let me come up. You're going to have to show me."
I went upstairs and went into the extra bedroom, where he takes naps.
"Show me what is scaring you."
And he pointed at, sure enough, a candle. It was a medium sized, I don't know what you'd call them, canister candles? One of those bigger ones that are sold at candle parties that smell like something "wonderful." This one smelled like baby powder. Libby bought it when Gabe was a baby. Apparently, at the time, we weren't smelling enough baby powder as it was.
Anyway, I looked at him. He was dead serious. This candle, which was sitting on top of a small desk in the bedroom, was the cause of his worry.
"Why are you scared of this candle?"
Through his sobs, this is the message that I was able to translate, "Because the candle will start on fire and then it will burn down the entire house."
After wasting a couple minutes trying to explain to him that things don't just start on fire, and pointing out that this particular candle, even if we WANTED it to burn, couldn't because a year or so back Gabe had personally dug out both of the wicks with his tiny little fingers and spread what wax he could all over the furniture up there, I gave up and put the candle in another room.
But now I'm afraid we've opened a floodgate and the irrational fears are going to rush in and sweep us all away. As long as whatever they are afraid of keeps being amusing, though, I guess I won't take it too personally.
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