It has become a ritual to head over to the playground every day after StrollerFit class to let the kids burn off some steam while we get in some post-class mom-time. The shady area between the slide and the swingset has become our StrollerFit Sacred Ground. We talk about everything; well, not EVERYTHING, but pretty darn close to it. I have had some amazing conversations with the moms in my class while sitting on the gravel helping my daughter build “castles.”
This past Tuesday, one mom told us she found a mouse in her basement window well and how freaked out she got when her husband pulled a chair over to the window so her 2 year old could see the mouse. Although she insists she’s not afraid of them, but just doesn’t like them, it was clear to all of us that she is afraid of mice. We teased her a little bit. Then, another mom mentioned that her cat brought her a present in the form of a live snake. She went on to share with us that she had called her next door neighbor’s house before she left for StrollerFit and asked the husband to please make sure the snake had been returned to it’s home by the time she got back later in the day. I volunteered that pregnancy used to be my #1 fear. Since I conquered that one about 3 years ago, my #2 fear sailed into that #1 spot and will forever remain there. What could I fear more than anything else in the world? Snakes & worms—hey, if an animal of any kind doesn’t have fur, legs or both, I don’t want to know about it!! This fear is so bad that I will not take my daughter into the reptile house when we go to the zoo. If I’m with someone else, I let her go with them instead and retreat to a seat at least 50 yards away from the entrance. You never know when that Anaconda might decide to take a slither break.
All the talk about our fears started us talking about how we cope with them when dealing with our toddlers, who are fearless. As it turns out, we all have found ourselves in situations where we have to put on a brave front and pretend for the sake of our child that we don’t think the spider is THAT big or that walking on the sidewalk after it rains and playing FROGGER with the earthworms is that big a deal. None of us really had a true solution but we all agreed that when we are in these types of situations, we have to buck up and deal with it so we don’t pass our fears onto our kids.
As we were leaving the park, my daughter got very excited…”Look, Mommy, a snake…isn’t he byooiful? Sure enough, I turned my gaze in the direction that my daughter was pointing and had to muster up every ounce of courage and calmness in my being to compose myself as I watched that Anaconda disguised as a garter snake slither across our parking spot to the median area where there were shrubs and god knows what else lurking beneath them. “Yes, honey, I do see the snake,” I replied. “I LOOVE snakes,” she continued as she climbed up into her carseat. “I know you do, sweetie,” I said. I calmly got her buckled in to her Britax Marathon(it took me 3 tries to buckle the seat belt part because my hands were shaking so badly) and secretly wished I could be the one getting buckled into an adult size car seat and closed the car door. I then ran around the back of my SUV so Macy couldn’t see me and did a full body shudder. The mom with the fear of mice asked me what was wrong and laughed when I told her what had just happened. “Ironic, isn’t it?” she asked.
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