Courage

The Boy's favorite book of the past few weeks is a pop-up book about cars that was given to him by his grandparents...well, it was a pop-up book before it was lovingly and painstakingly dismembered.

He drags the book from one end of the apartment to the other and seems to concentrate really hard on all the pictures (which is now, frankly, necessary).  But there's one picture he usually skips: on the last page there's a giant pop-up dog, and it terrifies him.   Since he insists on turning the pages of this book himself, it took me a while to notice that he was deliberately skipping the last page.  If I opened that page for him, he would scream and move away from the book as fast as he could.  If I was holding him, I could feel his heart start to pound.

I'm not sure why the pop-up dog scares him.  We don't have a real dog ourselves, but he sees dogs in the park fairly often, and he's very enthusiastic about them.  Maybe the pop-up dog just looks like something else to him (I didn't notice his fear until after the scary thing so maybe something about the image reminds him of that).

Over the last few days, though, he's been turning the last page and peeking at it.  He doesn't open it all the way, and he'll still sometimes let out a small yelp, but it seems to me (and this could well be in my imagination) that he keeps opening the page wider and wider.  When he closes the book, he toddles on his merry way with the self-satisfied  grin of someone successfully doing battle with his own private demons.

My brave boy.

Comments

[elle]

I bet you are right on target with your assessment - that's so cute!

[caro]

That's so neat to see, isn't it? M does a thing kind of like that with fake frogs -- rubber ones -- which she's encountered in two different settings now (here and at a friend's house). She is freaked out by them for some reason but also drawn to them ... wants to know where they are and try to touch them, but also wants someone nearby to bury her face in, and wants the frogs taken away the moment she's had enough.

[Rachael]

My son (almost 3) hides behind me when we read Where the Wild Things Are. But he insists that we read it every night.

[MoMo]

That was the cutest story! It's so sweet to think about your little one mustering up the courage to look at the dog!

[Elizabeth Jones]

That's really cute! My nephew does the same thing. Something will really scare him, but he'll keep going back to it again and again. Now that he's four, he tells us, "I like scary things." But he's been doing it since he was much younger.

[Isabel]

I don't know if I've ever posted before on your site. I rarely do in general and it's so weird to notice the things that trigger me to finally "come out of lurkdom." But I just wanted to let you know that I read this and cried. Not out of sadness for my own misfortunes in infertility or anything sad-laden like that. Just because I was so moved by this little portrait. I love the way that you find meaning in the seemingly small moments of your son's life. And you should know that you have a real talent for finding these moments that really do touch on some universal sense of courage and spirit (another example was when your little boy let himself go in the crib and plunked on his bum).

Thanks for turning me into a big ball of mush this afternoon.

Isabel

[Brooklyn Mama]

I love this.

[rianamotherofabigboy]

It's always fun to see kids trying to beat the fear. It's even still fun now watching my teenage son trying to beat the fear of asking his girl friend out. :D

Brave brave boys!

[Julie]

Oh, man, this made me shiver! Exquisite little creatures, aren't they?

[liz]

What a big brave little fellow he is!