joys of parenting: facing your fears

so i need to start this story by telling you one very important fact about me: i am terrified of birds. not just like "ew..i don't like birds".....it's more of a scared shitless crippling fear. but for some reason, when the boy asked me if we could go feed the ducks i said yes. it is very important to me that i don't project my weirdness on him. he needs to decide for himself how he feels about those incredibly unpredictable feathered creatures.

so we got to the lake where we were greeted at the car by a flock of ibis. i have come to terms with ibis. we have them in our yard all the time and for some reason i am ok with them. so at this point i am thinking: "it's going to be ok erin....you can do this for the boy".  these ibis were not scared of us one bit (i kind of wish they had been), instead they were quite fond of us.

 the flock followed us from our car....

...and across the street (traffic literally stopped)....

...where it all converged in one giant flock. there were ibis, ducks, seagulls, crows.....you name it. every bird within a 10 mile radius showed up for this feast. and all i could think about was getting my eyes plucked out.

so we started with the bread. at first i was handing it to the boy to toss. then i realized he wasn't much of a tosser and all the birds were getting closer and closer.  i mean these guys were literally stepping on us and pecking at our legs to get at the bread. this is when the paralyzing fear really took over and i snatched the bread bag from the boys hand and frantically started throwing it as far from us as i could.  the ugly ducks didn't stand a chance at the bread. they were too slow next to their feathered friends the seagulls. so instead of even trying to go for it the just stood at our feet hissing and nipping.  all i could think about was what the boy would think about his mother if i was forced to drop kick a duck.

alas the feeding frenzy was over and we survived. this little guy stuck around with us the entire time though. i am pretty sure he was the one to first greet us at the car.

then i let the boy loose to chase the birds and ducks. this was my favorite part. all the fear that they had instilled in me was coming back to them in the form of a wild 2 year old.

 then came the squirrel.

this little critter was brave. we backed down way before he did. i really thought he was going to crawl up the leg of my pants.

this little lady was sweet and i really wished that we had saved some bread for her. she waddled up after all the chaos was over just quacking away.

the moral of the story is that sometimes we have to face our fears for our children, and as promised we will return next tuesday with a bag of bread to feed the ducks again. it's like exposure therapy. hehe.