To me, it started while we were at an Ottawa Senators hockey game and their mascot, SpartaCat, came by to give my son a high five. I’ve never seen a kid jump into a parent’s arms so quickly! I laughed it off and told the cat to beat it! Besides, I am a Canadiens’ fan and don’t want my kid associating with the enemy anyway.
The next occurrence was when I won us backstage passes to meet The Wiggles! You know The Wiggles right? The Australian version of The Beatles but for children. We were all excited to meet them, especially the kids. The excitement carried over until they came into the room and my son saw them in their Wiggly uniforms. He scooched in close to me and said nothing the whole time. Honestly, I think I was more excited than the kids were at that point.
Finally we have the birthday party my son attended this past weekend. Although he eventually came around after some coaxing and maneuvering by us parents, he still freaked out at the sight of the man in the Spider-Man suit.
So where we did my wife and I go wrong? My daughter is fine with characters and even runs up to them when she sees them. The only way we got my son to sit with Santa is by telling him that if he didn’t tell Santa what he wanted, he might not get it. The lies we tell for photo opps…
With Easter upon us, we were discussing whether we wanted to go to the mall to meet the Easter Bunny this year. We were also going through our decorations and old Easter photos when we found this gem from when my son was a 1 year old. I had completely forgot about this creep show disaster of a mall Easter Bunny and now everything started fitting into place.
Case Closed! It still doesn’t solve the issue of how to stop him from being afraid but at least I know the origins. Sorry about any nightmares that come because of this photo…
Cheers!
Chris Read is the owner and writer of the blog Canadian Dad. Please feel free to stop by to say hi and/or follow on Twitter or Facebook