We’ve had a recent issue where Phoenix won’t do something because she claims she’s “scared”.

“Phoenix, can you come over here?”

“No,” she says. “I scared.”

“What are you scared of?” As if we didn’t already know.

“Bears. Bears eat my shoes.”

That’s right, she’s scared of bears eating her shoes. Or her coat. Or my car. Pretty much anything out there is something waiting for a bear to eat it. At night, we have this somewhat covered.

“The bear can’t get you, Phoenix, because you have your unicorn to protect you. Unicorns stop bears.” We’ll hand her this little stuffed unicorn and all is well.

“My un-corn.” Long “u” is a hard sound, I guess, so it’s not “unicorn,” it’s “un-corn.” Whatever.

This morning in the car, though, I didn’t have the unicorn and the bear talk started. I tried to think up something new.

“Daddy, I scared.”

Sigh. No unicorn. Well, let’s just get down to it. “Are you scared of bears?”

“Yes. Bears eat my shoes.”

“I know. But you like dragons, right?”

“I not dragon, I princen.” Hard “s” is also difficult, so “princess” becomes “princen.”

“Yes, you’re a princess… are you princess of the dragons?” I think you Game of Thrones folks see where I’m going with this.

“I princen of dragons!”

“That’s right, you’re the Khaleesi.”

“I kee-see!”

“Now, tell your dragons to stop the bears. Dragons can stop bears.”

“No, I not tell dragons.”

Dammit. “Why not?”

“Dragons scared of bears.”

Are you freaking kidding me? “Are you sure?” Then, out of nowhere…

“PA-KOW! PA-KOW! I shoot bear!”

O_o

Wait, what? “Phoe, you shot the bear?”

“PA-KOW! I shoot bear!”

Um. Well, uh… I’m not really sure where she picked that one up, but… I guess… bear problem solved, right?