My twins are super scared of many things, the dark, stuffed animals looking at them, butterflies (Darby), being alone in a room, being alone on the floor of the house. They just have a real heightened sensitivity to fears.
In Gatlinburg, it was butterflies for Darby....the water snake that made its way into our whitewater raft while the boys were sitting on the floor of said raft was no problem and they defended its right to remain a passenger with us...but the beautiful black and blue monarchs on the trails that day were cause to run and stay away from certain areas. Cooper didn't mind the butterflies and found a sort of monarch haven in one spot filled with 100's of butterflies that surrounded him...Darby looked on from 100 feet away with disgust. But down the same trail a mile or so later Darby didn't hesitate to snatch the snake off the ground, even as it was biting at him...he fiercely held on. It makes no sense!
The bug fear made selling boy scout popcorn door to door really hard. I would drive along in the caravan with the hatch popped open in the back while the boys ran door to door and Id creep along with the supplies. Unfortunately spider season parallels popcorn selling season so half the houses Darby or Cooper would walk up to and run away tears streaming down their face because they'd seen a spider, or the house looked spooky. One house had a rocking chair inside they could see through the window that somehow made them think the house was haunted! I'm so glad we dropped out of Scouts this year.
They sleep with the hallway light on every night and will throw a fit if one has to go upstairs to do something when no one else in on the second floor. Earlier this year they were both upstairs brushing their teeth while Jeff and i were downstairs watching an episode of the Sopranos. All of a sudden, they started shrieking like a murderer was trying to kill them...I mean shrieking...both screaming in sheer horror. So Jeff and I RUN upstairs to see what happened and they are both just frozen terrified standing in front of the mirrors crying and screaming. Evidently they heard the music from the Soprano's episode playing downstairs and didn't know where it came from and it just spooked them...so when one got spooked the other back me equally spooked. We were beside ourselves when we figured out that it was nothing.
Now that incident was probably a year ago...Jeff and I have had enough of the fear. Darby makes us turn all his stuffed animals and robot toys around s none of them are looking at him while he sleeps. If there's a book with a cover they deem scary, it cant be in their rooms...they're serious about this stuff. So we're trying to tackle this fear with them.
Jeff was in Chicago for the eagles game this weekend and I said it "its time to face these fears, the fears are irrational and we cant let them control us" I even picked up a couple pamphlets on the topic of fear from church Sunday to help them and a book...."Big God, small me".
Unfortunately, I had gone into Darby's room that day with new sheets and to cutify the whole place. I moved his stuffed dog from the dresser to the bed...eyes peering straight ahead. When Darby when upstairs to brush his teeth...alone, in an effort face his fear, he walked into his bedroom and saw the dog was moved AND staring right at him!! Sheer terror followed my running and screaming like an ax murderer was at his heels! It took him a little while to calm down but I explained I had moved it and he seemed to get over it.
When he went to bed, he asked me to close his closet doors...because closets are of course scary too. Well, i had opened up the windows all over the house that day and the pressure from the moving air caused one of the door to pop open a few minutes later which sparked the fear, initiated the terror screaming and crying which is a domino effect on twins so Coopers fear in the room next door is sparked and they're both again screaming and crying and running to safety downstairs.
Oh Lord bless these boys with a spirit of courage, erase irrational fear from their hearts and fill the void with your confidence...my God ONLY you can do this!
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