The Annotated Ankle Biter

Sometimes I really wonder at the workings of the toddler’s mind.

When my daughter was on the high side of two and a half, she was testing boundaries, and that made sense. But having someone who can barely see over the table running a daily science experiment on pushing my buttons was no more pleasant than it sounds even if I can rationalize it.

I have used it to my advantage at times. I’ve noticed that if I ask her if she wants to do something, and she says, “No”, that if I say, “OK”, she gets upset and wants to do it. Although, I’ve noticed that no amount of reverse psychology works on getting her to eat her vegetables—for that, I’m working on a strategy of familiarization and “peer pressure” of watching friends or people/characters she admires eating them—that I learned about from watching a Discovery Health program on the subject.

About a month ago, my daughter and I walked to the beach to watch the sunset. I enjoyed the serenity with no one else around. It was starting to get dark as we walked back, but it was a beautiful night. My daughter was dawdling a bit, so I stopped to let her catch up. She was pointing at the moon, the dog in the window, the fence where she sometimes sees cats. She was walking in quick little steps, or sideways. Not catching up quickly, but eventually. I was quite shocked when all of a sudden she looked down, spread her feet wide, screamed, and fell on her rear end. She’d been bitten by a spider recently, so I wondered if maybe she thought she’d seen one. Anyway, I carried her the rest of the way home.

Last night we were a bit late coming home from our walk. We were on the walkway to our house, when all of a sudden she looked down, gave a cry of fear, spread her legs out again, and started crying, “Up! Up!” I went over to investigate, and I realized that she was afraid of the shadow that was looming in front of her—her own shadow. I tried to show her that the shadow was harmless, but she wanted off the ground right away and was not interested in making shadow figures on the ground or trying to touch it.

I put her down once we were inside the house, and she followed me into the kitchen for a glass of milk. Except she was waylaid by the sudden appearance of that shadow in the dining room. “Up! Up!” I started to wonder if this might develop into a problem. It seems that my daughter has just now noticed the existence of shadows, and she’s not at all pleased—not even if I sing the song. Not even if her Nana sings the song. It’s funny to think that “afraid of her own shadow” is really a possibility, but it’s not so funny that she really is afraid.

My mother philosophically pointed out that it’s only a short while that she is so little that you have to protect her from things like this. It is very sweet. Still, what if she didn’t get over it? Not that that is likely, but I’ll be happier when this has passed.