Overcoming My Fears

I am a big believer in forcing yourself to try things that scare you. In terms of fears of a tangible nature, I would say that my big two have always been rodents and heights. This week I made progress in both areas.

The first being heights. This one is slightly embarassing. While at the park with E, she decided to climb to the very tallest slide in the whole yard. It is seriously 25 feet or more in the air. I pretty much had no choice but to follow her. The worst part being that when we got to the top, we both paused to look out over the playground before sliding down. I felt the familiar jello-ish feeling in my knees that I always feel when more than 10 feet off the ground, while my daughter just laughed and waved at all of the children below her. Sigh! Shown up by a 21 month old.

Fear of heights is one I force myself to conquer every time. I never turn down climbing to the highest point, I just feel like my heart is going to leap out of my chest every step of the way.

But my fear of rodents is entirely different. From ferrets to field mice, I hate furry little creatures that nibble. (Don't even try to tell me that a ferret is not a rodent...it is in my book!) I know a few reasons why I hate these creatures of foulness. I remember being accosted by a rat as a kid, and my dad says that I was bit by a ferret once too. That experience must have been so traumatic that I choose to block it out.

Either way, I hate rodents. Would rather handle a snake AND a spider any day. So it will not come as a surprise that I just about crawled out of my skin when I noticed that one of the local felines (maybe even my own) left a dead mouse lieing on the driveway earlier today. I tiptoed around the little rodent several times, but when the toddler noticed it lieing there and stood above it shouting "WAKE UP!", I knew I had to do something about it. (Remind me not to take her to a funeral any time soon.) I somehow gathered the fortitude required to scoop the foul little creature up with a garden trowl and into an empty plant container. While I carried the dead mouse to the garabage can, my daughter repeated "Bye bye" all the while.

I suppose I should be happy that our daughter has not learned to be afraid, but I'm more just pissed that a not even 2 year old is showing me up.

That's my "I'm a mature mother" story for the day!