Three years old is a time of exploration, of curiosity, of trouble and many successes. A time when the little people of this world begin to grasp how to become a part of this world. Most children around this age are frightened of overly loud noises or large objects, but generally their curiosity overcomes that fear and they venture forth to discover (or at least freeze in amazement to watch from a distance).
Not Rebekah. The garbage truck comes twice a week to our lovely complex to take away the apparently excessive amount of garbage we go through only to have my sweet little girl run to the far end of the house, cover her eyes, and crouch down in fear. I have not yet decided what brought on this phenomenon. She's done it for more than a year. There have been times that she's been brave enough to take a peek out the front window and wave it on it's way early in hopes that it would obey. But then it makes one of it's angry noises and sends her back where she came from with her tail between her legs - so to speak. There have been other times it's happened upon us while we were outside and I have held her close and tight as we watch. I try to help her see that it's not scary, just loud. That there is a nice man (usually) driving it and that he may even wave at her if she waves first. But for all my attempts I think she still sees a large solid colored monster roaring in anger and promoting fear wherever it rumbles. It can even pick up other large solid colored objects (dumpsters) and eat their insides!! That would seem scary to me too if I didn't know any better.
So for now we wade through the visits of the garbage truck and sing songs to distract us and hopefully lighten the angry mood of the monster outside. I comfort my little girl in all the ways I know how and then help her wave goodbye to the monster in hopes that it comes back in better spirits next time. "Nigh-night ga'bge tuck. Nigh-night."
5 comments:
Our garbage truck comes twice a week also and my kids know the schedule so well that every Monday, they climb up on the desk under the window and watch for it while I make lunch and the open the window and scream greetings until they get an answer...weird kids...I still don't like garbage trucks much...
Can't help ya there. My kids like watching the garbage truck--it's cool. There are some books at the library though and maybe that would help her. Some kids just have different fears. Mine seem to not like the vacuum cleaner (but not enough that they are scared of it) and now it's actually a game to run in front of it while I vacuum.
I don't know if you remember, but over by the bike racks, between our quad and the laundromat, was the land of dumpsters. The funniest thing was to be outside with all the kids at the playground and they would hear that garbage truck rumble around the corner and they'd all high-tail it to the end of the quad so they could watch it pick up the dumpsters. It was big action for those little kids!
One day she'll love it, just wait.
Well, I for one don't blame her - the noisy garbage truck still scares me!
That is HILARIOUS! I can't relate because Ethan and the neighbor boy across the street hear the garbage truck coming and they run up and down screaming with joy and if they are already outside they get as close as I will let them so they can watch the dumpster get dumped out into the big truck.
It's amazing how the tiniest things are exciting or scary or whatever. :)
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