Ello Pider
Our youngest son recently turned two and is empbracing his third year with gusto. Far from the cliched terrible twos he's instead the same funny smiling boy he always has been. Yes he's a little more definite in his opinions but on the whole he's the happiest person I've ever met.
While his favourite playmates are his older brother and sister his favourite unrelated friends are spiders. Here in Dorset we have an astonishing spider population, they surround all the windows of our house and every space in the garden. I never saw anywhere near as many spiders as I have since we moved to this part of the country.
And our little boy completely adores them. He cheerfully waves to them when he sees them "Ello pider" he says. He'll happily stand at the window for twenty minutes watching a stationary spider - occasionally offering an "Ello" or asking me to come "pider look, daddy, pider look".
...
Not that he's entirely free from fear of them. A rather massive spider scuttled across the sitting room floor the other day and our so was quick to get out of the way. But it was giggly fear and as soon as he was out of the path of spider travel he was back to moving closer, waving and saying once again "ello pider".
Perhap the most endearing element of his love for spiders is that he actually cares about them when he can't even see them. A few days ago we were sat having lunch and it began to rain very heavily. Here in our dining room we're next to the conservatory door and the rain drums hard on the low roof.
Hearing the rain our boy said "ooh no big rain" he thought about it some more for a moment and said "oh poor piders, pider wet." It's okay, I told him, the spiders like the rain. But I'm not sure he believer me and kept glancing over his shoulder to check whether his arachnid friends were okay.
Of course we expect our toddler to grow out of this, just like his love for tractors, trains and "stickman" and "monkey" books. But for now we're delighted to see him enjoy the horrible eight-legged freaks so much without running away screaming.
"Waps" (wasps) on the other hand he hates. So he's not completely mad.
| Print article | This entry was posted by Harry on 30/08/11 at 09:57 . Follow any responses to this post through RSS 2.0. |
30/08/11 @ 21:25
Oh, you make me miss the twos so much!
My son was so sweet and happy and sunny, and has now, through three and four, become more angry and whiny and scared of EVERYTHING, whereas before he was scared of nothing.
Except - the day he ran in from the garden and announced: Mama! I scared of the woffert! (wasp)
I miss the babiness so much!
30/08/11 @ 22:13
Hi Jo, thanks for your comment.
Our twins (now aged four and a half) went through a big scared and whiney phase when they were three. They often got scared of the oddest things - which led to them both screaming full blast like they'd just seen the world's scariest monster. And this happened with the oddest things such as the plug being taken out of their bath or some chicks hatching on TV.
It was baffling, scary and at times very annoying. It made us nervous of us taking them places because they would scream because they saw a cat or a dog. They were particularly bad about next door's cat, even though it was friendly and they got on okay with granny and grandpa's cat.
Thankfully though it was just a phase they went through - albeit a long one - and I'm sure it will be the same for your son and the sunny boy will return.
Turning back to our happy little two year old - I really hope he always stays as sunny as he is. It's just gorgeous having someone so joyful around. He's the happiest member of our family. I wonder how two miserable buggers like me and wifey made him - perhaps we cancelled out our grumpiness.
11/09/11 @ 14:32
Thank you! That's reassuring