"I'm scawed..."

Suddenly, my poor, traumatized little muffin is terrified of, well, everything! I keep hearing it's a phase but I worry about her sanity between now and then, especially with Halloween around the corner! Funny thing is, it is most certainly the scary lawn ornaments in the neighborhood and creepy decorations in the stores but it's also the most mundane things she's terrified of.

We were walking the dog and I pointed out a beautiful rainbow. I stopped her and we looked at the sky together and I asked her what colors she saw. She seemed very intrigued...at first. As we kept walking, she'd keep looking behind her and finally had enough, "Hold me Mommy, hold me!". I could tell she was upset about something but could not figure out what?? "Maddie, what's wrong?", I asked. "I'm scawed, Mommy...", she replied, burying her head in my chest. "Of what, baby?". She picks up her head, looks me dead in the eye and whispers (as though it may hear her), "Da wainbow." I tried not to laugh and spent the next 30 minutes trying to explain how rainbows are formed, getting desperate enough to harken on my days of 80's cartoons (Care Bears, Rainbow Brite etc) to help her understand the shear insanity of her thought process.

We haven't seen a rainbow since (thank goodness!) but many things have followed: Chuck E. Cheese (or pretty much anything stuffed and animated), a certain teddy bear Bella has, the dark, a couple of her books. Sheesh.