A Shark Tale

A tale of one small boy's encounter with an even smaller shark.

We have a small rubber stuffed shark. I'm talking like eight inches long and an inch and a half wide. Small. This is where the story begins.

A few weeks ago we were playing in the play room and Ethan kept on pointing at something like he wanted it. After a lot of trial and error I finally figured out it was the shark he was pointing at. And it wasn't because he wanted to play with it. When I went to hand Ethan the shark, he started crying and ran away as fast as his little legs could carry him.  He wasn't just afraid, he was terrified. Fluke? I thought trying to give Ethan the shark again. Nope, apparently not. What could have caused such fear? I questioned the kids when they came home from school and they all denied teasing Ethan with the shark. And I think they answered honestly. Then. Now would be a different story. After Jacob chased Ethan around waving the shark at him, I put the shark up on the bookshelf in the piano room. Out of sight, out of mind. Or so I thought.

A week later Ethan was playing in the piano room under the desk. I thought, "How cute." He was smiling, didn't seem in any distress. Perfect time for a quick shower. After my shower I heard Ethan crying and asked Emily to see if Ethan was stuck somewhere. (He likes to flip the piano bench over and climb inside and routinely gets stuck.) "Nope, he's still sitting under the desk," informs Emily. What? Ethan was indeed still sitting under the desk crying but he was also pointing at the shark. He was too scared to leave.

I feel bad that he is so scared of the toy so occassionally I will bring the shark down to show Ethan its not scary and see if he can become accustomed to the toy. I think its working. His reactions are not so extreme although he still doesn't want anything to do with the shark. Most of the time the shark is on the bookshelf hidden behind pictures, but Ethan will still point and ask "What's that?" whenever we go in the piano room. 

However, as I was putting the garbage back in the garbage can for the nth time, I couldn't help but wonder "What would happen if I put the shark in front of the garbage can cupboard?"