The Cookie Monster...

We all have certain fears in our lives, some people are afraid of spiders, some are afraid of heights, and so on and so on. And kids, well that's a whole other story! Some of the normal fears of kids might be clowns, or they are afraid of the dark, or better yet, they are afraid to eat veggies, not my child! My child is extremely afraid of, you guessed it, the cookie monster! Of all of the Sesame Street characters to be afraid of, the cookie monster! I mean, Oscar the grouch is a bit more scary, or the count, I mean counting numbers can be scary I guess, but the cookie monster??

She developed this fear several years ago. She use to love toys that danced, talked, shook, they were lots of fun. Well that all changed when she was 2 at Christmas time. Her Grandma Brenda and Papa Roger had brought some gifts over for her to open, one of which was a gift that sang, shook, and rolled all over the floor. You would have to throw it down on the ground and it would go all over the place. WELL, they wanted to show us what the gift did so Brenda picked it up and threw it on the floor, we all laughed, well all except Ashlyn! She cried and cried, her daddy had to hold her. Now this gift was still wrapped up so I'm sure that it could be scary to a 2 year old. Later that evening, we decided to open gifts, she was going nuts, but there were a group of gifts that she just wouldn't open. We kept handing her these gifts and she would just put them aside and open something else. The gifts finally ran out and these gifts were all that was left. We told her to open them but she wouldn't, she just cried. We couldn't figure out why, until we realized that these gifts were wrapped in the same paper as the scary ball. SO, I had to open one gift for her and show her things were fine and then she dug in. This was just the start of her fear. She had a duck that would sing "if you're happy and you know it" she loved it, up until the ball incident. Then came the cookie monster. Her Great Grandma Mosset had given her this cookie monster that shook and said "oh boy oh boy", he was super cute! We pulled it out one day and showed it to her and she cried and ran away. It was so bad that if this cookie monster would sit out in the living room, we would have to hide it because she would just scream! So Papa Doug ended up having to throw it away and she let everyone know that Papa Doug threw away the cookie monster.

Okay, so back to the present. Just last week we all went to Target to find a gift for Papa Roger for his birthday. I had to go grab something so Trent and the girls decided to walk down the toy isle. As I was coming back to them, I saw Ashlyn crying and screaming, "no no no get it out get it out" and she was standing on the side of the cart. In fact, if I wouldn't have come up at the moment I did, there was a good chance she could have fallen out! Of course, daddy would never let that happen. I proceeded to ask what the problem was and there in Trent's hand was the dreaded cookie monster! With those scary eyes on top of his head, and the horrible looking cookie in his hand, oh and the huge smile on his face, so scary! She was crying in complete fear! We could not believe it! Well I had to test this one more time today. We went to Toys R Us, I keep losing Kinsley's pacifier and needed another one. We walked around getting a few things we needed, and just as I was approaching the isle with all of the baby stuff Ashlyn saw him. She said to me, "mommy please don't put the cookie monster in the cart" I said to her, "why are you so scared of him? he's just a stuffed toy, he can't hurt you see" She started crying and yelling "no no no, get him out" I showed Kinsley, she was excited and wanted to hold him, but Ashlyn, again was screaming in fear! And just like the last time, she was trying to get out of the cart as fast as she could!! I guess it's safe to say, we will never be going to Sesame Street Live anytime soon!!