Put another dollar in Matt's therapy jar last night.
The kiddos and I met Jackie and Jadyn at the Burlington Mall yesterday afternoon, and had planned on Mark and Ryan meeting up with us for dinner. We walked by the Rainforest Cafe and decided that it would be fun to take the kids there... It's a whole rain forest theme (go figure) complete with trees, animatronic butterflies, gorillas, frogs, etc, and a giant fish tank.
All was going to plan until the "thunderstorm" while we were waiting for a table. Matt looked a little freaked. That should have been our first warning. Then, there was a man with some live animals outside the restaurant for the kids... he had a ferret, a parrot and a couple of other animals. Mark being the ferret lover that he is, wanted to show it to Matt. Matt loved the ferret (or kitty, as he thought it was), but was terrified of the animatronic crocodile opening and closing his ominous jaws right behind the cuddly little ferret. That should have been our second warning. Alas, we didn't heed said warnings and got a table and sat down... right next to a giant mean-looking gorilla with a sparkly red bow tie. Just as we were ordering drinks, the "thunderstorm" started up again and the gorilla began beating his bedazzled chest and growling. Wonderful. Matt went into absolute hysterics. I felt so bad!! He started screaming "MONKEEEEE!! BUH-BYE!!! MONKEEEE!!!" and pinching my neck, which he does when he's nervous. He was shaking like a leaf.
Needless to say, we ended up at Pizzeria Uno where we had a pleasant meal... although Matt kept looking around making sure there were no monkeys at that restaurant.
4 comments:
Ok...I know I shouldn't laugh but what a visual! LOL It reminds me of how Colin used to react when we lived in the condo. We had a drawer at the end of the kitchen galley that, when you pulled it all the way out, would fall of it's tracks and crash and all the utensils in it would fall out. Colin would freak out everytime I opened that drawer and would quake and cry and scream "Drawer? Drawer?" and ball up his fists in terror. Poor things...it's hard to explain to them at that age what's pretend and what's real. But it makes for a good story once they're grown! ;o)
I know! I was actually laughing as I was typing that. Horrible mother, aren't I? Laughing at my son's terror. ;-)
Poor guy...I was terrified of animatronic crocodiles too. The jungle boat ride at Disneyland had me terrified and hiding on my lap the whole ride! And I was 5 years old.
On my aunt's lap, I meant
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