Walruses Might Get Me!

Adelaide's imagination is really coming to life these days. She tells us outlandish stories often that make us laugh. However, a surprising side effect of the book Baby Beluga, that is probably just coincidental, is that Adelaide has started fearing things. If you've ever read Baby Beluga you know there are no monsters or anything in it and all the sea creatures are friends, but Adelaide has started fearing walruses.

Yes, walruses. When I get to a page in the book that has a walrus, Adelaide says "he might get me," "he might hurt me," or "don't touch him." I always remind her that he is just in her book and that he can't hurt her, but it doesn't seem to help. The other day she kept asking "where is the walrus?" I kept telling her he is in the book. Then we started coming downstairs. She asked one more time where he was, and I told her, "he's upstairs." Before I thought anything of it, Adelaide broke down in hysterics. She was sobbing and shaking uncontrollably in my arms. It took a long time for her to calm down.

For about 2 hours afterwards, she would not let her guard down. If I tickled her or tried to distract her, just as she'd stop being diligent, she'd stop laughing and look around cautiously. She had one more incident the same day where she was absolutely terrified. No matter what I said, trying to rationalize with her, she was still scared. We looked at dancing walruses on youtube. We talked about how it's too hot here for walruses and how they live in water. We even revisited the book and looked at how the walrus was friends with Baby Beluga.

She's even started waking up some in the middle of the night crying, feeling scared. It's really weird. It's calmed down with walruses, but now it's expanded to other animals-- elephants, hippopotamuses. Yesterday when we came in from outside, Adelaide started running really fast. She said, "the hippopotamus might get me."

This is new territory for me. I hope I'm handling it in the right way, but trying to comfort her and talk with her about her fears. I'm hoping this phase will be short lived. It's really hard to see a kiddo so scared.