Scary lion....

A scary thing happened to Kian this past weekend!

We were reading "Little Gorilla", and he was following along, happily looking at each of the pages and turning them for me -- until we got to the part where the book says "Lion roared his loudest roar for him", and I decided to give a little roar by way of illustration. (you can see the lion if you go to this link and scroll down: http://books.google.com/books?id=5KD4r_CYSjoC&printsec=frontcover&dq=the+little+gorilla&source=gbs_summary_r&cad=0#PPP1,M1)

My roar wasn't loud, and it certainly wasn't meant to be scary, but Kian was looking at the drawing of the lion roaring with all of his sharp teeth exposed (Little Gorilla was pulling his tail) and it struck him all at once that this was a very frightening thing. The poor little guy jumped, and then his face crumpled and he began crying with all his heart. He hardly ever cries!

I held him and rocked him tried my best to soothe him, explaining that the lion was really a very nice lion, and that Little Gorilla just startled him by pulling his tail - to no avail. Just looking at the picture sent him over again! I tried continuing on with the story and Kian allowed himself to be distracted by Little Gorilla, but every time that we've read the story since and we get to the part with the lion (which I read quickly with a very happy voice) he looks at it out of the corner of his eye with deep misgivings.

Needless to say, I don't roar anymore!