I am almost embarrassed to admit what an easy baby Josie has been so far. I’m always nervous that saying it out loud will alert the fates that we won the baby lottery. I was prepared for sleepless nights, painful feedings, and endless screaming, but none of this manifested. Josie has slept through the night since she was about two weeks old, goes to bed easily and has never cried for more than a few minutes without me being able to calm her. Even breastfeeding, with the notable exception of the time and fatigue associated with pumping, was easy. None of this has been because of my superior parenting skills; I just had the good luck to give birth to an easy-going child.
Which brings me to my first parenting dilemma. The child is terrified of animals. This is rather unfortunate, given that I have a bad habit (or at least Tim would call it so) of bringing home furry creatures to share our home. For the last few weeks, whenever the dog or one of the cats approaches Josie she begins making a small sound. It starts off as "oh! oh! oh!" and then escalates to a louder noise, which rapidly disintegrates into an angry howl while her little puss crumples into an expression of sheer terror. She then throws her reddened face into my shoulder and holds onto me as if my big dumb yellow clueless dog is snarling and growling, rather than looking a little confused. As soon as the offender is out of sight she calms down- until she turns back around and sees the beast still there. She then begins the whole process again. If the animal has moved she’ll actually crane her head around to try to find it. It’s almost as if she enjoys being scared- a trait which reminds me eerily of my own fascination with watching any Discovery channel show that involves close-ups of spiders and shrieking until Tim yells at me to turn the channel.
I’m unclear how any daughter of mine can be scared of animals. I was a zoology major, for crying out loud. Don't all babies love furry things? Today, after the shrieking and before the face-hiding, she actually went so far as to reach out and swat at a defenseless mechanical hamster as it happily sang "We Are The Champions" and waved a little Steeler flag. Girlfriend just can’t go around assaulting hamsters, right?
I’m at a loss here.
