My Son's First Monster

I took my wife and son to dinner tonight at Acapulco. We were seated in a booth, and all went well until my son looked at the wall. Of all the places in the restaurant, our booth as well as the two nearest us had some wall art. As you can see in the picture, it is a clay sun with a face. My son was terrified of this.

He looked at the sun, looked at my wife, and immediately a look of concern came, followed by a deep frown. He started cowering away from the wall, which he happened to be closest to. Within seconds it became apparent that he would have to sit with Daddy, as far from the sun as possible.

A quick aside since it fits chronologically - My son was cracking us up with the chips and salsa. He decided it was time to start eating the salsa before our drinks had come. This is always entertaining because he gets this from his Daddy. It doesn't matter how hot it is, he is going to keep going. He looked up with surprise in his eyes after the first dip and said, "spice". This is his way of saying "spicy". We tried to sooth his tongue with other chips until the drinks came. He decided to go for the salsa again. With a big grin on his face, he said, "salsa!" and dove into the bowl again. This time he began scraping his tongue with his fingernails. His milk arrived within seconds. He drank some milk and went for the bowl again. It was pretty cute.

So, we finish dinner and he has begun his usual misbehaving stint and crawls under the table to get to Mommy. We thought he was over the whole sun incident by now, as he didn't seem to notice when he crossed over. My wife had touched the sun, pretended to feed it, and tried to convince my son it was safe throughout the meal. Right when we thought he was over it, he figured out where he was standing and got scared again.

Who would have thought such a simple wall ornament would cause so much fear in a two year old? I think it will be a while before we go back, so he can build up his nerve for another round. :)