Anatidaephobia

Anatideaphobia! Yep, that's right "the fear that you are being watched by a duck." When I read this definition online, it totally made sense to me. I have never been afraid of ducks, or known anyone who has. That is, until I had a son. Alexander is so afraid of ducks that he has nightmares about them; at least, we are pretty sure he has nightmares because he will wake up crying in the middle of the night saying, "quack." It took us quite awhile to catch on to his fear of ducks. In fact, we used to bathe him in a ducky tub. We even bought him tons of those cute rubber duckies (you know, the ones Ernie is always singing about on Sesame Street)! Anyway, he has tons of ducky bath toys, as well as other bath toys. We noticed as he got older that he preferred other bath toys over the duck ones. Grandma even bought him a cute duck toy that swims in the water. At first, that toy really scared him and he would cry and want to get out of the tub. I guess we were just so persistent that he is okay with that one now. But any other duck is off limits.

We first noticed his fear of ducks when we introduced Jacob into the ducky tub. It is the same transitional ducky tub that we bathed Alexander in. We use it after they grow out of the infant tub, but still aren't quite stable enough to sit up in a regular tub. Anyway, one of the first times we bathed Jacob in the tub, Alexander started freaking out and pointing at the duck while saying, "Quack! Quack!" We learned quickly that for some reason he didn't like the duck, so we started hiding it in our room, in between the bed and the wall. You couldn't see it from our bedroom door, but one day Alexander ran in to play with stuff on my nightstand (which he has done since he was little, how I forgot that I don't know), and all of a sudden he was in tears and screaming, "quack." Shortly after this incident, he seemed to dislike the rubber duckies too. He can't even have them in the tub.

So eventually, we just decided to retire the ducky tub and let the boys start bathing together. Luckily, Jacob is great at sitting up now. He has his occasional falls, but we are always there to catch him. Anyway, he is still so afraid of ducks. He will point at random doors and say "quack." And today, he was afraid to go in my room. He kept saying, "quack!" and pointing to my side of the bed. I assured him that the duck wasn't there and has been gone for weeks, but he was shaking due to fear as I held his hand to show him it was gone. Poor little fellow!

Why do I share all of this with you? Well, tonight I discovered that his fear is "a made up fear." Yeah, that's right, my poor little boy is so scared and it isn't even a phobia! It turns out that a man named Gary Larson, author of the Far Side comics, made it up for one of his comic strips. Well, Gary, I will have you know that you weren't so far off with your comic. Alexander is afraid of ducks, and frankly, I don't know waddle do!