The sky is falling

Sometimes the Spouse and I wonder how or why the girls have certain personality traits. For example, neither of us remember being particularly dramatic as a child. And, yet, there is this one offspring who feels underdressed in anything but a princess dress and cape right now:

In fact, all three girls are far more frilly and squeal-ly, perhaps melodramatic at times, than I can recall ever being. Likewise, the Spouse claims he was never as high-energy or intense as they seem to be most always.

But, this week I discovered a trait I have in common with the Preschooler that I can trace all the way back to my kindergarten days.

The Preschooler is our chronic worrier. This summer she’s been very concerned that the Toddler is going to eat the “poison berries,” as she calls them, on the holly bush that lines our driveway. Granted, the Toddler enjoys putting foreign objects in her mouth, most especially those that resemble real food. So, when we’re outside the Preschooler often obsesses about this one concern. She’ll even tell me hours later, “I just wish we could cut down that holly tree.”

Or, another example from a couple of weeks ago. At bedtime she couldn’t get settled enough to fall asleep so I finally asked her what was wrong. And she replied, “I have stage fright.” Keep in mind she was in bed and not anywhere near a stage or a performance. But, earlier that night we had been talking about choir and she decided right then and there that she was going to be afraid of singing in choir next year because she might have to be on stage in front of people. A valid concern, of course. But, her fear is very premature since this is months and months away.

It just pains me that she worries so deeply about things of this sort.

So… a couple of nights ago, I was reading the two older ones a story about Chicken Little when it hit me. I was Chicken Little in a school play in kindergarten several years {actually three decades} ago.

I think it could be argued that I looked as much like a lion as a chicken, but that’s beside the point. If you’re familiar with the story at all you’ll remember that Chicken Little gets hit in the head by an acorn falling off a tree and is convinced from there on out that, “The sky is falling!”

Essentially, Chicken Little is hysterical over her mistaken belief that disaster is imminent.

Sadly, it could probably be said that I was typecast for this role at the tender age of six. And, in more ways than I’d like to admit, I’m just as likely to make a pretty convincing Chicken Little thirty years later.

I can fret with the best of them over all manner of potentially disastrous scenarios. And, I’ve been known to do so on numerous occasions. {See my “Google” search history every time one of the girls has a fever or a rash}. I’m a chronic worrier and if left with too much time on my hands, I’m prone to waste it away reading all sorts of fear mongering news.

If anyone should understand the Preschooler and her fears, I should be the one to empathize.

But, I think it’s time for both of us to put our Chicken Little days behind us and stop worrying about a falling sky. It may indeed fall. In fact, in Disney’s remake of the story Chicken Little was right all along and his hysterics saved his whole town from an alien invasion. So, you know… it could happen.

Even still, I think I’d rather be raising girls who are more fearless than fearful.

So, for now, we’ll be reading a little less Chicken Little and a little more Sheila Rae, The Brave or Ladybug Girl… or Fancy Nancy… that one should be right up their alley.