Things that go Tweet in the Yard

Lets face it, three year olds are scaredy cats. All my boys have gone through it, they turn three and become more aware of the world it's wonders and also it's dangers and suddenly everything has to be categorized as friend or foe. With Benjamin it was sounds, we spent a night at a cabin when he was three. We were sleeping in a warm upstairs room and had opened the window, there was a babbling brook outside that I found rather pleasant, to Benjamin it was a screaming stream bent on his destruction. Every 20 minutes all night long he would grab me in panic and ask,"Whats that sound!" For Isaac it was the smoke alarm in the hall, it scared him so bad that he wouldn't even walk down the hall alone for a few weeks. They've all had their little three year old fears some amusing some understandable but Adam takes the cake.

Yesterday he went out to play in the sandbox a minute later he came running into the house, slammed the door, and threw himself into my arms screaming, "they're gonna get me!"

"Adam, what's going to get you" I asked, while trying to pry his arms off their strangle hold around my neck. This boy weighs four lbs. more then his five year old brother his favorite pass time is extreme wrestling with his dad, if his feet keep growing at their current rate in a couple of years well be able to tromp him barefoot through the Oregon woods and incite a Sasquatch fad. This kid is the king of tough I couldn't imagine what terrifying thing was in the yard to scare him.

"The bird's Mom, they're gonna get me!" The strangle hold tightens.

"What bird's?" I ask, Joseph, who has followed him in and is observing the whole thing with his usual stoic reaction, answers for him.

"Mom, it was just a bird, it hopped down on the fence."

"Was it a big black bird" I ask? Crows scare me a little, I could understand a crow.

"No just a little bird." Joseph says with a shrug, loses interest and goes back outside.

"Mom why is it getting me?" Adam asked.

"I think it was just hopping down to see what you were doing, I bet if you waved hello to it it would fly away." I gave him my best comforting mom hug and sent him back out.

A minute later he was back, freaking out about birds everywhere, and they were going eat him, no amount of logic could convince him that birds are our friends. He spent the rest of the day standing by windows, checking for birds too afraid to go outside. I spent the rest of the day laughing at him, feeling a little sad that this is my last scaredy cat three year old, and dreading the four year old 'nothing can hurt me' phase.