Fear

Fear, its funny, when we are born we have no fear, no idea of the dangers of the world. We learn fear, we are taught fear.

My son has been scared -

the one time, I regretfully put a brown paper bag on my head to be funny, and made him cry for 15 mins.. needless to say he is A-fraid of masks...

Or his fear of Walgreens for 6 months after Easter. Because he thought that big ugly scary looking bunny was there... It wasnt until one day I clutched him in my arms, while he pinched and screamed,  I walked down to the pharmacy counter to show him that the Easter bunny was all gone..
Soothing him, telling him " he went home.. hes all gone"

Now, his insecurites come out every time we enter Walgreens, " Easter bunny is at home, mommy?"
" yes baby, hes all gone, he went home"

A few weeks ago, the children at day care were, innocently playing outside on the swings,
one child: " come push me austin"
So he does, then gets accidentally kicked. Nothing major, and I thought it would just be a passing thing. Because there were no boo-boos..

Today, weeks later,  when we go outside, Austin is petrified of the swing.

It really made me think, fear. Its a legitamte thing, and its hard to conquer.. Even when you're 2, or even moreso when you're two..

here I am at 22, and have some irrational fears, some legitamate ones too.. And we could try to spend our entire life being afraid to do things, or even trying to conquer them.

Fear is often either unfounded ( unlike Austins rational ones) or unexplanable..

Either way, as an adult I find most my fears are not of the physical nature, like heights or spiders, or Easter bunnies, but more so of the emotional nature - like rejection, or lonliness..

Today we got together with an old high school friend.. And Austin LOVES her..

1) she has the same name as me, so he gets to say "becky" without me telling him to stop
2) there was los of water and "kids" to play with..

he has NO FEAR of water...