Cutting through the fear

After listening to Little Dog freak out about the crab in his bed that pinches his toes while he sleeps for far too long, I had to take action.  But how do you go about breaking an imaginative child of a completely unfounded fear?  In this case, the solution was clear.  The solution was dinner.  

My theory was that if he ate a crab, he'd realize they weren't scary so much as really really tasty.  I brought home a cooked whole crab from the new fish market near work (about time for Seattle to have a convenient fish market for me) and talked him through the process.  And the boys loved whole experience.  They loved the crab cracker, they loved smashing the shell and they loved eating it.  It was a success.  Or so I thought.

A couple of nights ago, Little Dog was talking about the crab in his bed pinching his toe.  I reminded him there were no crab in our house. 

"The only crab that was in our house, we ate.  And it was delicious."

He nodded, and agreed, "Yes, and it was full of meat!"

So I think we're back on the right track.

Update: Last night the crab talk continued.  He was convinced there were crabs in his big brother's bed.  I reminded him that we ate the crab and it was really yummy.  His response? "They are made of claws!"

"Yes, but we ate the claws, they were delicious."

"And they have nasty pinchers!" he exclaimed, making pinching motions with is fingers to emphasize the pinching factor.

We may have more work to do on this front.  Or at least a few more crab dinners in the near future