The Many Fears of M.

M. is a fearful child, I guess terrified is the more appropriate word. Clancy and I had to throw away the book Mommy Doesn't Know My Name, because on one page, Hannah, the heroine, appears to be a chickadee. M. is quite terrified of chickens because, she insists, of their pointy beaks. Sometimes when I read to her, I will look at her, and she will be covering her face with her little hands. The book The Monster at the End of the Book really just about sent her over the deep end. (Straight to the garbage).

She is also terrified of skeletons and skulls, so the current trend of skull decorated clothing has presented numerous problems. Once she even told me that she was scared of the food at the grocery store. I think only Clancy and I could have produced such a fearful little thing. I have always been extremely scared of all kinds of things, when I was young I bordered on total OCD, I thought that my fears wouldn't materialize SO LONG AS I took five steps to get to my bed, had five pillows in my bed, kept my silverware pointing towards myself at all meals, and spelled words out in my head in complicated patterns all related to the number five. I am better now, perhaps due to the extremely large dose of Zoloft that I take every day.

And Clancy is no better, he has fears related to supernatural phenomenon, while my fears are more along the lines of scary thoughts about murderers. And the two of us have very regular, unreasonable anxiety related to fears about our careers and lives.

The worst part about all of this is that when I was a little girl, I can remember admiring my parents and thinking about how fearless they seemed. They weren't afraid that my dolls were going to watch me and kill me when I fell asleep. I couldn't wait to grow up so that my fears would dissolve like theirs seemed to have. But now that I have grown up, unfortunately I am just as scared of aliens (my one predominant supernatural type fear) as I was when I was a little girl.

Poor M. I really wish that she hadn't inherited this unfortunate quality from us.