Today I Learned That Kids Will Surprise You

    Emree has A LOT of fears. She is scared of water in her eyes, the dark, buckling her seatbelt (that might just be pure laziness), going to dance class, doing something wrong, that she will look dumb, and DOGS.  Yep, we got a dog. I thought this would help her with her fear and the first two weeks I was getting pretty nervous. She would only stay up on the chairs or table. She didn’t want to be on the same level as the dog. When she was in one room and she didn’t know where the dog was she refused to go into another room. She even waited too long to go to the bathroom and had a few accidents. It seemed to be getting worse and Ty and I were losing our patience. I had read that fears are irrational and that you can’t rationalize away a child’s fear.  I read that you need to give them space and time and try not to use phrases that would make them scared. Key words like, “There is nothing to be SCARED of” or “ He won’t BITE you” or “Do you think he is going to ATTACK you?”  Kids can only hear the scary words in those phrases and just think… SCARED, BITE, and ATTACK. So, here I was being an informed mother and trying my best to teach her to love the puppy. IT WASN’T WORKING!!!  Yesterday we resorted to forcing her to walk on the ground and to hold the puppy and tried to rationalize with her. All the things we weren’t supposed to do. She wasn’t very happy with us to say the least.

       Today I learned that kids will surprise you. I don’t know why or how, but Emree has played with the puppy all day today. She fed him food from her hands, she walked on the floor, she let him chase her and even laughed when he licked her face and nibbled at her heels. She told me she loved BOULDER and is so happy that she got a puppy. What? Maybe it is the cough syrup speaking. She has been sick and so we gave her a little… That must be it. I will keep you posted.