Arachnophobia

doesn't this picture make your skin crawl just looking at it?

Isaac had spied a spider on his bedroom window earlier today. In his cavalier daytime voice he told me he had left the room to get a piece of toilet paper to squish it, but upon returning to his room it was gone. (First of all, I can't imagine him squishing the spider---hasn't he learned from me that we capture spiders in empty baby food jars and wait for dad to come home to properly dispose of them?)

That was the last I heard of the spider until tonight when Ike was in bed. Then, the big 7-year-old started to sound a little less brave and said, "What if the spider comes in my bed and bites me?" I too, had forgotten about the spider and didn't want to start thinking about it NOW since it was already 12 minutes past bedtime and this was my time, dangit! But I am really a good mom so I started using all those motherly reassurances that probably aren't scientifically true like, "Spiders are more scared of you than you are of them" and "Spiders don't like beds because it's hard to walk on soft surfaces with eight legs." Then I told him the spider he'd seen was probably quite harmless.

But my boys check out too many science books at the library and Ike told me that the spider he'd seen looked just like a wolf spider! Well, I knew that no matter how much I love my child I ain't hanging out in the dark when a scary wolf spider might start crawling on me. So I kissed him good night, told him the spider had gone to bed himself and got myself out of that spider den. That doesn't make me a bad mom, does it? It's not like it was really a wolf spider, right? And Isaac is safe in bed since we all know spiders don't like crawling on soft things. Or had I made that one up? I'm getting all itchy thinking about it. Good night!