Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf?

My son. T.E.R.R.I.F.I.E.D. of the local hockey team mascot. They have face painting and games for kids before games and while we were standing in line for the face painting the Wolf came out to greet everyone. Now Mr. Mohawk was excited about the wolves. He wore his wolf shirt. He made sure to show everyone how wolves howl (oow, oww wooo). And pointed excitedly - Ooh Mommy there’s da wolf. But the minute that wolf came within 15 feet of him it was clawing and scratching to get up in our arms.

Now I was prepared for this. We are taking the kids to Disney World. I am re-reading my trusty Unofficial Guide to Disney World and actually reading the chapter on Disney with kids. (Sadly, we’ve always gone with adults. HA!) And one BIG warning was that 60% of preschoolers are afraid of the characters in costume. Some of the tips were not to force the kids on the characters and to try and show them by example that the characters aren’t going to hurt them by having an adult approach.

So we tried this technique. Mommy went up towards the wolf and declawed my son’s hand from my jacket he was screaming “No Mommy don’t go in there. He’s going to bite you!”. Its too bad I can’t show the pictures because the face on him and me trying to express that the wolf was friendly are hysterical. So after several tries of getting closer to the wolf we just dropped it all together. We did tell him the wolf was cousins with Mickey Mouse so of course he wouldn’t hurt us but that will probably come back to (forgive the pun) bite us in the butt. Once the wolf was a safe distance away though he was very happy to watch him go about his business and howl at him.


Now at this point you may be wondering about Jelly Bean. Well lets just say her attitude/mood was less than stellar on this day. She came home from shopping with Grandma bouncing off the walls and acting silly which may have been because both adults thought the other had given her her ADHD medication. Which was because she had told one of them she already took it (Of course denied by said child.) Or it could have been because Grandma got her some cute stuff and now she thought she could do no wrong. Either way, I could have done without the pouting and whining for the entire night. I thought for sure we’d be fine as when the kids came home from their visit the night before we played Go Fish and worked as a family and they seemed to be ok. This continued into Sunday and despite spending over an hour explaining to Jelly Bean what behavior was acceptable and not and that its up to her how she reacts and discussing that no amount of bad behavior was going to get her sent back to live with her Mom (until the judge said so) or to another foster home. That we wanted her here and we’d like it best if she was giggly happy Jelly Bean instead of Tudy miss attitude. My best guess is that these are boundary/attention seeking behaviors and I know it just takes time but I was like COME ON!

On a separate note we realized the last 3 weeks of visits have not been at Mom’s home. Per the caseworker she moved. And needs to move to another home that is more suitable for the kids. And when that happens and the case worker signs off then the visits will resume at home supervised. I don’t think this is a good sign. Especially, since she allegedly told the kids they were going to move back in 6 weeks.