Monday, February 2, 2009

Sometimes you just have to "force" your fears...

It only took a major obsession with playing the Star Wars Wii game to help Evan get over his fear of being in the basement by himself. Our basement is completely finished, and if I do say so myself, very nicely so. It is probably the nicest part of our house because we had built the whole house prior to finishing the basement and knew what we were doing and what we wanted when we decided to start down there. I guess it is a rite of passage in our house that you have to go through a "basement of terror" phase, because Spencer was the same way.

It was funny to me, in a completely annoying kind of way, that when Evan and Hailey were playing in the basement, if she would start heading upstairs he would begin to cry and beg her to stay with him. Then he would follow her upstairs and would be totally grumpy because "Hailey is not staying downstairs with me!" As if his little sister is going to be able to protect him from whatever he thinks is down there. Spencer did the same thing with big bad Evers as his protector.

All hail the Star Wars game because it has completely changed things. During Hailey's nap he will usually go and play for his "quiet time". I hear him down there talking to himself and he will run up from time to time and tell me about the new character he bought or how close he came to achieving "true Jedi" status. With him so entertained it means that I have a bit of down time without kids following me around the house.

The force is with us!


He is really good at the game. He will try to convince me to play with him sometimes and if I do, he pretty much yells at me the whole time or tells me that I am doing something wrong. It is a tricky game to master. He has watched Spencer and Daddy play so much that he knows exactly what he is doing. He is very confident about his skills in the game now. When Spencer used to play all the time I would tell Evan to join him and he was always bummed that he couldn't really play very well. It is nice to see him master something that he has always wanted to do.


2 comments:

jules said...

Your post reminds me that all kids must be the same with their fear anxiety. When our two go downstairs, it only takes about 5 minutes and little sister comes up and her older brother follows her up (usually crying). A reminder that I would love to get my basement finished. Wish, your cousin, Ryan felt the same way!

dr said...

Good Job, Voovee. "You've got to overcome your fear..."