What's Your Greatest Fear?

A friend once told me about a conversation she had with a roommate in college. The roommate asked her, "What's your greatest fear?" clearly looking for a meaningful, connecting conversation.

 Although, Roomie had her answer ready, my friend didn't. She said, "Oh... I don't know. Maybe... snakes?"

Well, snakes really are Ben's greatest fear. He sees them in books and hisses, "Snake icky, keh!" He spies sticks on the ground and won't walk past them. He sees them coiled in aquariums and backs up.

In fairness, his first up-close encounter with a snake was kind of scary. We were playing at a friend's house with five kids and one lab running around when our ball rolled toward the street. As I walked to retrieve it, a three-foot-long black snake lunged at my leg.

 I'm sure this snake was simply enjoying the sun after a long winter, just like we were, but the dog, kids and ball were probably stressing it out. Ben was just a step behind me and even more stressed than the snake by my friend's screaming and her dog's attack. (Yes, we watched the dog attack, shake and subsequently kill the snake. Then it killed two more.)

Ben was frozen with fear and that's when he began refusing to walk past anything that remotely resembled a snake (sticks, strings, worms, garden hoses). Luckily, he no longer becomes paralyzed and begins to cry giant cartoon tears at the sight of sticks. But I think that snake left a big impression.

Ben's fear is so all-encompassing, it got me wondering what is my greatest fear? This is tough because I'm pretty much afraid of everything, but I've come up with a short list:

1. Something will happen to me and Chuck will be the sole caregiver for our children. Before I explain, let me say that I think Chuck is a great dad. He makes time to play with Ben every single day, he reads with him every night before bed (he never misses even if that means he'll be up working until 11:30 or later). He obviously loves Benny and I know he'll be just as good to our daughter too.

But he's still a dad and dad's have some holes. For instance, I was gone almost all day on Saturday and the following is a real conversation:

Jackie: Did you and Ben have fun today?

Chuck: Yep.
Jackie: What did you do?
Chuck: Hung out with Chris and played some T-ball.
Jackie: What did you feed him for lunch?
Chuck: I thought you fed him lunch before you left.
Jackie: No. I left at 11:00 am, why would I have fed him lunch?
Chuck: He was eating when you left.
Jackie: Yeah, he was eating his morning snack - the one I give him every day at 10:30 am.
Chuck: You really didn't feed him lunch?
Jackie: You really didn't feed him lunch?!
Chuck: He didn't say he was hungry.

Fair enough. Dads are simply too busy having fun to be bothered with mundane chores like "feeding" the kids. And in the long run, having a fun day hanging out with Dad is more important than one meal.

Dads really are fun. They think doughnuts are an acceptable, even healthy, breakfast option. They think it's ok to skip brushing your teeth if your camping - in fact, don't even bother packing your toothbrush. And they always have good ideas on how to make everything bigger and better. Like:

"You call that a fire? I'll show you how to make a really big fire."

or

"If you bounce like this, he'll catch your bounce and fly off the trampoline."

Dads are critical to families. If you're blessed with a good one, enjoy it and thank God every day for the father he gave you. But I think kids also need moms to provide peas at dinner and peroxide when there's been just a little too much fun.

2. Gary will finally succeed in chewing off a large, unfixable portion of my hair. I still sleep in a stocking cap because he thinks I'm his sister cat and purrs/grooms me nightly. He chewed some very stylish bangs for me earlier this year and they're just now growing out.

 2a. Gary will decide my baby girl is also his sister cat and chew her hair off.

3. Ben will be just as helpful with his baby sister as he is with the rest of the household chores. Don't get me wrong, I love his willingness to help and diligence in completing a project. And most days, I'm even ok with the fact that when he helps with the dishes, that means the entire kitchen will be wet when we finish.

But I have visions of him shoving binkies in her mouth or sunglasses in her eyes. I know his heart will be in right place, but he's simply not physically capable of executing all these plans he comes up with.

For fun, I tried to image Chuck, Brandy and Gary's greatest fears. Here's what I came up with:

Unfortunately for Chuck, I think he faces his fear annually:

2010 Standings: W-67, L-95

Every April he gets his hopes up and by July he's saying, "I'm just excited for football." You have to admire his loyalty. Also unfortunately for Chuck, he's a Chiefs and K-State fan.

 I'm almost certain that this is Brandy's greatest fear:

Brandy wants a puppy like she
wants a bath. She's an old, tired dog
who maintains a strict 8:00 pm bedtime.
A puppy is out of the question.

I am 100 percent sure this is Gary's greatest fear:

An empty food bowl is the only
thing that's ever managed
to elicit a panicked mew from Gary.

I tried to get a video of Ben telling me how much he hates snakes (because he's so stinkin' adament about it), but that totally failed. I got cheesy Bean instead.