Quirky Kid

I am not sure what to think of my little son.  Don't get me wrong, I love him and think he is the greatest little guy in the whole world.  He makes me laugh at his funny little walk, he makes my heart melt when he comes to me frequently throughout the day for little snuggles, and he makes me cringe when he eats the bar of soap in the bathtub.  However, he has one little quirk that I just don't know what to think of.  When he was a baby, loud noises seemed to really bother him.  I didn't think much of it since he was so little and I figured he would eventually grow out of it.  I know that there are lots of kids afraid of the vacuum cleaner or blender but my little boy seems to be a little bit more extreme with the things that frighten him. For example, the other day someone started mowing their lawn during our dinner time.  The patio door was open so we could hear it in our house.  T absolutely lost it.  Now, I should clarify that the mower was far away, I would say almost a block but apparently that was not far enough for our little scaredy cat.  It was a beautiful summer evening and I had to go close all the windows in the house to block out the sound so he would calm down.  Now imagine what the vacuum and blender do to him.  I have to vacuum the entire house while holding his 22lb body that is trying to scurry up my arms onto my head, the farthest point from the vacuum.  When I blow dry my hair he sits on the floor with tears streaming down his little face.  Lucky for him I have super thin hair and it drys quite quickly.  Then there is his excited sister who occasionally lets out a high pitched excited boy-band-groupie screech.  That just about causes T to loose his mind. 

I thought this phobia was limited to sounds until today.  I set up a little tent for the kids that has a tunnel coming out the side of it.  T will have nothing to do with the tent, nor the tunnel.  I don't know if it's because he doesn't know who or what might be in it or if he is just unsure as to where the tunnel leads but we cannot get him in it.  I thought it would be fun to climb through the tunnel to show him that I come out the other end.  As soon as my head disappeared into the tunnel T lost his marbles (even though my entire back end was still hanging out.... it's a tunnel for kids).  He screamed like a crazy person until I came out the other side, which took quite a long time since I really didn't fit in the tunnel and I got stuck which caused me to have to stand up (tunnel still attached to me) and shimmy out of the silly thing. 

I guess these are just strange little quirks that we either wait for him to grow out of or we simply just warn his future wife.  I just hope I don't have to carry him around while I vacuum until he moves out or, worse yet, I hope his wife doesn't have to carry him around while she vacuums!

Picture by Tammy Engel Photography