On Thursday, with an entire free day on our hands, Bean and I ventured out to the natural history museum. It’s about 30 minutes away, and we made a pit stop for lunch along the way.
Bean got more and more excited as we drew closer to our destination. (Incidentally, it does my heart good to hear my child exclaiming, “I just can’twait to get to the museum!”) She was practically skipping across the parking lot when we arrived, clapping her hands and singing.
And then we opened the door.
Bean, who was practically bursting through the door, stopped dead in her tracks. She stood motionless in the doorway for a few moments, shook her head, and backed out of the open doorway. She turned to me, her eyes wide and her face absolutely serious.
“I don’t want to go in there,” she said.
My child, shockingly enough, is a very stubborn child. And when she makes up her mind, she makes herself very clear, and it can be very hard to change her mind. And she did not want to go into the museum.
At first I thought it was because the interior was sort of dimly lit. Or because it was a very big room. Bean can be anxious about things like that, especially when the surroundings are unfamiliar. But as I opened the door to try to coax her in, I saw what she’d seen.
Okay, but imagine it way bigger. And real. And…a skeleton.
Bean stood firm: she was not going in. That dinosaur was big, and scary, and she didn’t want to walk past it.
I assured her that the dinosaur wasn’t scary. That I understood why she was scared, because he was very very big, but that he wasn’t alive and he wasn’t going to do anything. He was just going to stand there, like a big toy. I offered to hold her hand or carry her.
She was having none of it. The more I talked, the further she stepped away, shaking her head. And then, frustrated and frightened, she began to cry.
We stood there in the courtyard for a good ten minutes before two museum employees emerged, pushing a little trolley with water bottles and other bits and bobs. I decided to take a chance, and asked Bean if she might like to ask one of the museum employees if that big dinosaur was scary. ”After all,” I explained, “they’ll see him every day. They’ll know all about him.”
Bean nodded, still flooded with tears. One of the ladies had overheard me and stopped. She asked if we had any questions. Bean, summoning all of her courage, croaked, “Is that big dinosaur in there really scary?”
The two women quickly and enthusiastically assured her that the dinosaur was not scary. Bean, overwhelmed, wrapped her arms around my neck and sobbed. One of the women said, “Would you like me to walk you to the desk? You can cover your eyes and you don’t even have to look at that dinosaur.”
Bean reluctantly agreed. I lifted her, she buried her face in my shoulder, and the nice woman chatted away as we walked to the admission desk. Once there, Bean peeked quickly at the T. Rex. Her eyes grew wide, and then she said, “Hey! I looked at that dinosaur and it’s okay!”
And just like that, the fear vanished. She chatted with the ladies at the admissions desk, who told her that the dinosaur was just like a big toy, and that they’d even seen it taken apart and put back together. Why, it was just like giant Legos! Bean, who loves Legos, loved that image. And when they told her that the dinosaur was actually a girl? She was tickled to bits.
We faced more fears as we made our way through the museum : dimly lit rooms, displays of giant animals, and the bones. Ohhh the bones, somehow fascinating and terrifying at the same time. I shared my enthusiasm as we walked through the hominid exhibit. Introducing Bean to Lucy, I talked about our book at home with lots of pictures of hominid fossils. Bean was excited, but did later clarify that she does not want to look at photos of bones.
We finished our museum trip with ice cream and a walk on the nature trails. Within minutes of getting back into the car to go home, Bean was sound asleep.
All that bravery takes it out of a girl.
(Photo: Amazon.com)
That is exactly happened to “Little Critter” when he accidentlly found the dinosaur exhibit. I also have one who is excited about Legos, and facing fears, maybe we should venture up there.