Fringe

With the exception of sudden very loud noises when she was a newborn and an unfortunate introduction to a certain “baby yeti” finger puppet (they have made their peace since), Edith has never really displayed any fears. The world so far has been extremely welcoming and accommodating to her. She might occasionally crawl off a high thing or pinch herself with a clothes pin, but these are small harms, easily shrugged off. She has never encountered true terror.

Until now.

I finally got this filthy wool area rug cleaned that I’ve had rolled up in a spare room forever, and I put it down in the living room. It’s great for Edith because it gives her more traction for pulling up on the couch and some padding when falling off it, and at first she seemed to enjoy it, but then I noticed that whenever she was on the rug and something happened in the other room or I left, rather than come along, she’d sit on the rug and cry.

This is very unusual for Edith, who readily invites herself all over the house and rarely stays in one spot longer than ten minutes these days.

Well, it took me some experimentation, but long story short, I discovered that she’s scared of the fringe on the edge of the rug. She WILL NOT crawl over it and has to be lifted over it, or walked over it. Why? No clue. There are so many actual dangers to her personhood which she goes to any amount of trouble to seek out and embrace, but the rug fringe is her kryptonite. There’s no fathoming babies.