Molly is usually curious, and often brave.  She will climb, grab, or throw any unknown object with the best of them.

But Molly does at times get scared by ordinary things.  For instance, she used to have a paralyzing fear of shredded paper in her old classroom as a baby.  When they got out the shredded paper for a special festive play activity, Molly reportedly screamed and cried and crawled out of the area as fast as she could.

Apparently she still holds a fear of unexplained, colorful, festive items in the classroom.  The picture below appears among dozens of others from Molly’s classroom.  In the picture, you can see a teacher wearing a colorful parachute on his head, surrounded by delighted toddlers.  When you look a little closer, you can see Molly, alone among her peers, running away as fast as possible.

Molly seems to be thinking…

That man has a poisonous octopus on his head!  No, wait, that IS his head!  Run for your life!

Happily, later photos show Molly contentedly playing with said teacher and parachute, so she was able to calm down after the initial panic.  I should not make too much fun of Molly, though.  This quick, irrational fear may have been useful for some long past ancestor when, say, a colorful snake appeared in a tree above.  While her fearless friends stuck around to see what it was, maybe this ancestor ran for her life and was able to produce a long line of similarly panicked and embarrassed offspring.