Creepy Crawlers

I seriously do NOT like creepy crawlers or things that go bump in the night but find that for my children's sake...I put on a good front.

When I was younger I used to live in a house that had those big gigantic spiders.(At least they seemed pretty gigantic to me at age 7) I remember lying awake in the middle of the night and starting at one in the corner of my room. I would fixate on that creature until my eyes burned with dryness and my lids were too heavy to fight to keep open. I was so terrified of what that spider may do should I fall asleep. I needed to know that it was staying put. It was the size of a golf ball. Huge! Especially when you are a little girl.

I don't even like the tiny ones, brown, neon green, the gross banana spiders that have recently taken over my community like the plague, daddy long legs that "eat bugs" and/or any variation of the sort. However, for my children to not gain my fears I have to put on my super hero face and handle the  situations with ease.

These are the spiders that are all over our community. One was right in front of our window...now it is MIA

I don't even like lizards... and they eat bugs. Lizards are more helpful yet if one is in the house my husband has to get it outside before I can go to sleep. I will fixate on all the possible things that the lizard could do:

Crawl in my mouth or up my nose or anywhere on my body while I sleep. It could poop somewhere in the cabinet with dry snack foods and I could ingest lizard poop becoming ill. It could die somewhere hidden behind something and stink up my apartment with fowl scent lingering for days until I can find its corpse squished in the most unusual spot. I don't know why....it is just a lizard. Oh, and the see thru gecko looking ones creep me out most!

One afternoon there was a baby lizard by our front door. I panicked mostly because I didn't want to kill the poor thing trying to get it out of the house. Honestly, I panicked more because I wanted it out and I had to be the one to do it as my hubby was not home. Super hero mommy mode struck. I put my calm face on and told Grayson that we needed to get the lizard outside so that it could find food. He was fixated on my every move and tuned into my emotional state for sure. I proceeded to get a paper plate and coaxed the little guy onto the plate and outside without injury.

Oh and cockroaches! Those creepy disgusting crawlers that scurry so fast and crunch when you kill them. YUCK!

One night I woke up and turned on the light to see one scurry across the floor. That sucker was so fast! I tried to trick it by turning the light out and back on hoping it would reappear. I could not go back to sleep for a good half hour just knowing that nasty crawler was lurking somewhere. A few days later it showed it's nasty self and I happily crunched the sucker and flushed down the drain.

The thoughts that fill my head with these creepy crawlers stems again from a childhood memory. I was eating ham and steamed cabbage..(yum) at my aunts house. I was older, maybe 11 or 12. She was telling me some story about her cross necklace and how it choked her at night. She got into religion and how the devil can take on any form. Right as those words came out of her mouth a huge palmetto bug flew and landed on my arm! I screamed so loud and jumped off my stool faster than you could say, AMEN.

On our way to pick daddy up from work Wednesday Grayson was telling me there was a bug in the car, "bug mommy..bug!"

I was trying to determine what kind of bug. As I was driving I began the fifty questions:

Me - "Is it in the car?"

G-Man - "Yes, Mommy"

Giggles....

Me - "Is it moving?"

G-Man - "Yes. Mommy."

More giggles

Me - "Is it an ant or a spider,?" (please be an ant -  I was pleading in my head)

No answer....

Me - "Is it an ant...?(please let it be an ant)

G-Man - "Yes mommy."

Me - "Is it moving up towards mommy's head or down?"

G-Man - "Moving. Bug moving mommy!"

More giggles with a lot more enthusiasm

As I glance over while at the traffic light my eyes caught a tan spider crawling right on the head rest in the car. It was coming right at my head! (Screaming...Mad raging terrified screaming....in my head!) With one swoop I grabbed a Starbucks napkin and squashed that little car traveler. 

Then Grayson says-"gone mommy..bye bye!?"

Me - "Yes. Do u see the bug anymore?"

G-Man - "No mommy gone."

Of course in my pre-mommy days I would need to pull the car over frantically and kill the unwelcome guest. Otherwise I would probably end up wrecking my car.

Today, I calmly opened the doors while at a traffic light and looked for the evidence of a dead creepy crawly. I saw nothing and even tried to carefully open the crumbled Starbucks napkin to see evidence that indeed his hitch hiking had been terminated. Nothing. Maybe he just blended into the napkin....Hopefully.

In high school I went to a Blink 182 concert with a friend and had a similar instance only I was driving and a spider was crawling on me!!! My friend saw and told me to be still.....wait what?! She told me the situation and I told her just kill it. With one big slap of my shoulder whack! Just like that...no more spider.

Gone are the days where I can allow myself to be engulfed with fear. Now I have to show my kids that I am their Mommy but not just any Mommy..their Super Mommy! Now the irony of my not so fond of spiders story is that guess what my daughters favorite nursery rhyme song is......? The Itsy Bitsy Spider!




*Spider photos provided at - http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9b/Banana_Spider.jpg
*Palmetto Bug photo provided at - http://www.phmainstreet.com/mba/blog/palmetto.jpg