The Giraffe
They’re horrifying, terrifying, absolutely the worst. Well, at least to the two-year-old. What could this be? Baths? Shots? Long car rides? No, something more insidious and nightmarish...
He runs into our room in the middle of the night and yells, “Dad! He’s trying to get me -- the giraffe!” I scooped him up and tried to shake off the fuzz. Wait, what’s wrong? “There’s a giraffe in my room, he’s trying to get me.” I took him to his room and did a thorough sweep for giraffes. I felt about 98% sure there were no evil giraffes lurking in his room.
So I tell him it was just a dream and there are no giraffes in the house. This is the point when my wife swoops in and decides she wants to scare the c-r-a-p out of him. Apparently, at 4 a.m. she becomes very precise and technical. So, just as I’m saying, “there are no giraffes in the house” she’s suddenly there in the dark saying, “there’s only one giraffe in the house --”
Now, I assume she was trying to reduce the giraffe threat by reminding him of the toy giraffe (Sophie) that the baby has. And I suppose, technically speaking, there was one giraffe in the house. But see, at nightmare thirty, I was going for the comforting blanket statement (there are no vicious giraffes hunting you in the house, son) instead of the semantically correct but panic inducing, “there’s only one giraffe in the house” statement.
All the two-year-old heard was confirmation that there was indeed a ravenous giraffe in the house trying to eat him. However, even though she introduced the concept of a giraffe in the house to the scenario, he still wanted momma, so I handed him off.
As I went back to bed I have to admit I was slightly amused. Who ever heard of a kid being afraid that a giraffe was chasing him? Then I started thinking about giraffes...and you know, they ARE kind of scary. They resemble a strangely camouflaged, stretched-out Loch Ness Monster that walks on land. The thought of one of those ungainly beasts tearing after you would certainly be frightening even for adults.
The next day I tried to track down the source of his giraffe fear. We have a few books that contain giraffe material and there is a picture of a giraffe on one of our screen savers, but I hardly think those images are the source of the giraffe nightmare. At this point, I’m placing the blame squarely on the non-existent shoulders of the talking giraffe from that popular toy store.
The next night the two-year-old asked if there were any giraffes in his room before he went to bed. Together, my wife and I assured him there were not. And our unified front allowed him to get through the entire night without any giraffe nightmares.
A week or so later, my wife took the boys to a kids’ clothing store to get halloween costumes. The four-year-old wanted to be a fireman. And do you know what costume the two-year-old picked out? A giraffe. He’s going to have the scariest costume on the block.