Overcoming the fear of furry

Gigante

After a busy morning visiting Thomas, Mal had a marathon nap and then we jetted off to our next event, his buddy Ryan's birthday party.  Ryan had a baseball themed birthday party, followed by a trip to see the San Jose Giants play.

While the nap he refused to wake from interfered with the birthday party, we did make it to the baseball game "after party" at the SJ Giants Stadium.  While there we were looking for the party group and ended up sitting in some prime front row seats along the 1st base line.

While Mal was happily munching on the allergy free hot dog I brought for him, Gigante, the mascot for the Giants, came around the corner and started his schtick with us.  Before I knew it, Mal was in my lap, with his head buried into my chest, quivering and screaming at the top of his lungs.  I had never seen him more scared of anything in his life.  Mal was screaming bloody murder, shaking in my lap and the mascot just kept going on and on for what seemed like an eternity.  He had snatched my cell phone from my lap and it was a prop in something he was doing.  I kept trying to shoosh him away, but he went on and on and on.  When he finally moved to the next section, Mal finally peeked his head up, only to start screaming again when he saw him out of the corner of his eye.  He was done.  He wanted nothing to do with Giagante and wanted to go home.

Fortunately, we found the rest of the party and Mal was able to relax and enjoy the game.

Happier times at the baseball game

While he eventually had fun at the game, he never forgot Gigante.  We spent the next few days playing "mascot".  One of us would pretend to be the mascot and the other person would be scared.  The first few times, Mal "acted" as scared as he was at the actual game.  It was akin to desensitization therapy.  We played this every day for a week.  While his reaction while we played was better, something tells me Mal is not going to cuddle up to giant furry creatures any time soon.