"What's that sound? Is it growling?"

Black squirrels. Bears. Fluffy white house cats. Cougars. Groundhogs. Porcupines. Terriers.

What do all these things have in common? Anna is now terrified of them.

This weekend, we went up to the Florrisant Fossil beds for a family adventure. The trails are relatively flat and well-kept, so it's easy for the kids to run amok. As we set off on one loop of the trail, Kurt says, (because he's all sensitive to three-year-old imaginations), "Okay, Anna! Watch out for bears!"

Anna stops. Frozen, wide-eyed, legs still bent in the step forward she was about to take.

"Bears? There are bears. Do you hear that growling, Mama? I see the bear!"

I promptly kick my husband in the butt and then tell Anna that kicking isn't nice, Mommy and Daddy are just playing. Riiiiiight.

"No, honey, Daddy is teasing, he's so silly! There are NO BEARS. It's fine, I promise."

After considering this for a moment, while I continue to reassure her as to her safety, Anna begins to slowly walk on the trail. Just as she finally starts moving again, we come across an educational photo stand that has a huge blown up picture of a black squirrel on it.

"Ooooh, Anna, look, I cute squirrel picture!", I say, trying to distract her a bit.

"NONONononono. Where is the squirrel, I don't like the squirrel! Squirrels are so big, do you hear that growling? Is it the bear?"

Oh, dear. As we made our way along the path that day, there was from knee-height an ongoing monologue of, "There aren't any bears, Mama. I'm not scared. There aren't any bears with the squirrels and I don't see any squirrels. There's just trees. I'm not scared of trees because there aren't any bears and you would tell me if there was a squirrel, okay? What is that sound? Is it growling?".

Anna has also generalized this fear to a large array of animals, big and small. At the zoo she is fascinated by the apes, the giraffes, the lions, the jaguars, the meerkats and the monkeys. She will not go near the wallabies, the birds, the cougars, the Pallas cats, or the grizzly bears. But the black bears are okay.

And Sappho? Grandma's cat of long adoration? Yeah. She was reduced to tears last time they came in close contact and needed help and support to walk around the living room where Sappho was lounging center stage.

While, most likely, this is just one of those stages kids go through (I recall being deeply terrified of our house cat as a child), I am going to take this opportunity to place all the blame on Kurt.

Okay, Anna! Watch out for bears!"

Seriously, honey?!