Shortly after Alexander came home (almost 2 years ago, wow!!!) we were in a store and he was riding in the seat in the cart. We came across some Koosh balls in the toy section, so I dropped one in his lap for him to play with. Oh my! He immediately covered his face with his hands, started shaking and SCREAMED! He was terrified. I tried to explain to him that it was a toy, a ball, and he could play with it. He wanted nothing to do with it. So I wondered if he had a bad experience with something at the orphanage and this silly toy reminded him of it. The unfortunate part of the story is that Marina was with me at that time and thought it was hysterically funny that he reacted in such a way. So, occasionally while shopping in the toy section of a store if we run across a squishy ball like that she will throw it at him and laugh at his (irrational?) fear. I have to admit....sometimes it was funny. Like the time that Mike was with the kids in Target and I was a few aisles away. All of a sudden I heard a blood curdling scream come from the area that they were in. Immediately a Target employee came walking over to ask Mike if everything was okay. Ooops! :O)
Fast forward to today.......
We are shopping in Target and the kids talked me into walking through the toy section. Guess what we come across? Well, Marina takes it off the shelf and throws it at Alexander. He jumps back and screams. I took the opportunity to bend down, pick it up off the floor and encourage Alexander to touch it. It took everything that he had to reach out and touch that thing with just one finger. I showed him how you could bounce it, pull the pieces out and watch them snap back, throw it, etc. Well, slowly but surely he warmed up to it!!! And by the time we were done shopping, that toy was in our shopping cart and coming home with us. He loves it now!!! :O)
So, here is a picture of my little trooper, with his new squishy doggy toy! Way to go, little man!!!
And he even has a smile to go with it!!!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment