Arachnophobia

Who knew motherhood would make me brave? Not me. If anything, I have traded my carefree life for an existence of worry. I can no longer wake up and jump in the shower. I worry, "Is she still breathing?" I can't just go into the kitchen to make lunch. I worry, "Is she hungry?" Vegging out on the couch is not one of my daily activities. I worry, "Is she stimulated enough today?" My world no longer revolves around me. I wouldn't want it to anyway. It's amazing how my whole perspective has changed.

The other day, Audrey and I were "playing." She was practicing lifting her head, and I was encouraging her. Hazel wanted to go out, so I got up to let her outside. When I opened the door, a huge, silver-dollar sized spider ran inside. It ran under the chair by the door. Usually my guard dog would take care of a spider, but she was busy chasing away a bird in the flowerbed. What was I going to do? Under normal circumstances, I would avoid the room where the spider/roach/bug is and wait for Brandon to come home and kill it. Another coping mechanism that I use, besides avoidance, is trapping the spider/roach/bug under a cup and placing a heavy object like a shoe or canned good on top of the cup. This day though, none of these techniques would work. I have a baby to protect. We can't avoid the room all day. And with the spider under the chair, I obviously can't trap it with the cup and shoe method.

Well, I do what I would have never ever dreamed I would ever do in a million bazillion years. I hunt the spider. First, I gather all of the spider-hunting gear together: carpet cleaner (it has a nozzle that will shoot a mile), Febreze (in case the carpet cleaner doesn't work), and Brandon's heavy running shoe. Mind you, I have to gather all of the materials at warp speed because Audrey is still laying on the floor oblivious to the danger. I crouch down on the floor to look under the chair. My bottom is up in the air and my cheek is flat on the floor. I am in a very precarious position. In this position I am very vulnerable to the spider. He could jump on my face at any minute, but I can't find him! So, I continue searching. I found him hanging upside down on the bottom of the chair, hiding from me. I use the Febreze spray to knock him down, and he starts running. I shoot him with the carpet cleaner, and thank goodness he slows down. I am able to beat him with the shoe. He stops. I squirt him with more carpet cleaner to make sure he's dead. He's dead.

Now, to make sure he doesn't send out signals to his spider friends, I employ the cup and shoe trapping method and wait for Brandon to get home.

But now the room is filled with poisonous carpet cleaning fumes. What is a mother to do? I spray Febreze on the carpet. Hopefully, Audrey will continue to develop normally despite the toxic fumes she inhaled that day. At least I saved her from the spider.

Wow. What motherhood has done to me...made me brave.



(As I was typing this, I felt a tickle on my shoulder. When I looked to see what it was, there was a small spider on my shoulder!! No kidding. I beat it with Hazel's bone, and I actually picked it up with a napkin! But I flushed it down the toilet so it couldn't send spidey signals to its friends.)