>Piranhas

>Childhood fears.  Every kid is going to have them.  You figure that there are lots of normal ones, like fears of strangers, the dark, monsters under the bed, that sort of thing.  You also think that as a parent you are more or less prepared for those with strategies like easing into leaving your child with babysitters, having nightlights, and doing the under-bed sweep before bedtime (not to mention watching “Monsters, Inc.”). 

But I was not at all prepared for bathtime several days ago.

Sebastian has been wearing some new socks because he outgrew his old ones.  I washed them before he wore them, but you know how it goes.  The red socks come off and there are little bits of red stuff still clinging to the toes.  No big deal; they come off in the bath, right?  Ha. 

Into the bath Sebastian went, off came the red bits, and… commence terrified crying.

What?

Yep.  He took one look at those fuzzies floating around and reacted to them as if I had dumped five piranhas into the bathtub with him.  He shrieked, pointed, cried, “NO, NO, NO!!!” and attempted to get as far from them as humanly possible without leaping out of the tub – which he would have done were I not sitting in his path. 

It turns out that getting fuzzies out of a bathtub is not as easy as it sounds, particularly if the only cups you have handy are those kind with the holes in the bottom so the water can drain out, entertaining the toddler.  Fuzzies, you see, are small enough to come out of the holes, too!  Not to mention the fact that I was trying to do this one-handed, as the other hand kept Sebastian from hurdling the tub.

The scene was one of those that is only funny in retrospect:  shrieking child pointing at fuzzy piranhas, soaked mama trying to remove offending fuzzies from tub, and  daddy trying to reason with toddler that we wouldn’t have put anything in the tub with him that would hurt him.  Sigh.  Children of 19 months old do not understand logic, much to the daddy’s dismay, but apparently they do believe that fuzzies will bite them.

Scene two:  Bathtime cut short, calm toddler sitting in hooded towel saying, “No fuzzies in bathtub,” and mama resolving to clean off toddler’s feet before next bath. 

And this is how parents end up doing those things – like picking fuzzies off their children’s feet every night – that make other people think they are insane.  I could, of course, keep this to myself since it happens in the evening when we are at home alone.  But then you might think our family is normal, and we can’t have that.