SpiderMom

Ahhhh, spring!! It abounds with newness! Birds sitting on egg-filled nests, flower buds swollen with the promise of vibrant blooms, even the insects seem to to have descended upon us with a smile on their multi-eyed faces. And the eight-or-more-legged crowd seems to be fruitful and multiplying as well.

This past weekend we attended a birthday party at a county park. The kids had a great time and were playing well with all their friends. But at one point my daughter alerted me to the fact that there was a spider under the see-saw, teeter-totter, whatever it's call.

My little insect detective

My natural inclination is to tell her to leave it alone. Spiders are our friends. They eat mosquitoes and annoying bugs. I am actually unlike most 'girls' in the fact that I like spiders. Yes, that's right. I like spiders. For the reasons that I mentioned, but also because I find them fascinating. We have a backyard with lots of trees and every spring we see an abundance of golden silk spiders (or banana spiders as some may call them.) Before I had children I would work outside in the yard and watch these spiders throughout the season. The large female spiders reach 3-4 inches in diameter and are beautiful. One year I watched one through it's whole life cycle. She would spin her large web daily and then sit on her perch in the middle waiting for any food to find it's way into her web and then she would attack it. She would leap down and stun the critter and quickly begin wrapping her golden silky web around it until it was immobile. She would then leave it hanging there until she was hungry so as to not ruin her petite orb-ish figure. I actually was so concerned she didn't have enough to eat that I went and bought crickets at Petsmart and threw them into her web. No kidding. She was kind of our little pet that summer. And when she wove a little egg sac to our siding I couldn't wait to see little baby spiders. And I did get to see them! They jumped right out of that egg sac and flung themselves all over the backyard riding on their tiny yellow silky strands. A few hung out in the web for a few days.

Charlotte with a baby riding piggyback

After she birthed her babies Charlotte climbed back into the trees where she was born to live out the remainder of her days. She was a beautiful creation of God's and it was a privilege to watch her.

So fast forward a few years to that moment this weekend on the playground. I looked under the see saw where my children had been playing and saw this:

I see you!

Sorry for the fuzzy picture, but I was kind of freaking out a bit. It was a brown widow spider momma hiding behind 3 spiky egg sacs in her web. I knew she was a brown widow, because that same summer I loved watched Charlotte I also eradicated many other poisonous spiders after I googled them to find out what they were, kind of a spider genocide, but poisonous venom is a deal breaker for me. Also, I knew she was protecting her little babies so she would be defensive. But guess what? I was protecting my little babies, too. So I cleared the kids out of the area and got a stick for my weapon of choice. I scraped her off and she was fast and furious running around on the stick so I threw the stick into the woods. (Or so I thought) I got the egg sacs and stepped on them. I was kind of proud of myself, Supermom, for saving the day. Go ahead kids. Play on. Supermom saved the day.

So... after I got home that afternoon I noticed a strange bug bite on my shoulder. Kind of like a mosquito bite, but with 2 bumps in the middle instead of one. Great, I knew what that meant. Spider bite. I guess she had the last laugh after all. The next several days my muscles had a inflammatory response to the bite. First my shoulder, then my elbow, then my neck. It's really a bummer that my body always fights back with inflammation instead of super powers. I guess when Peter Parker talked about his spider sense tingling he probably wasn't talking about a burning, radiating pain down his arm. Finally I went to the doctor and started some antibiotics and the bite is just about healed. But I am sharing this with you so that you know to be careful and look under playground equipment to see what lurks out there! And most importantly- get one of the big, strong dads at the birthday party to go spider wrangling!

My days of being fascinated by spiders have come to an abrupt halt (I hear my mom cheering!) Charlotte and I will always have the summer of '05, but now I am the protective, defensive momma and spiders better watch out! Instead of eating bon bons and watching soap operas in their web all day, they should keep just one of their many eyes looking out for me! Because I do walk softly and carry a big stick... covered in Raid.

Big Top Phobia

I know a lot of people have weird, irrational phobias that I scoff at and don't begin to undertsand. Like selenophobia which is the fear of the moon. And not the full-hiney-hanging-out-of-the-pants kind of moon, but the real up-in-the-sky-tide-inducing moon. I mean c'mon. Is that real? And then the new modern, chic fear called Nomophobia: the fear of losing cell phone contact. I totally believe this one and Verizon made a entire commerical campaign playing off this fear. 'Can you hear me now?'

Don't get me wrong, I'm not without my own weird phobia. For the majority of my life I've been afraid of the circus. Most people would automatically assume I had coulrophobia which is the ever-popular fear of clowns. Now, I'm not a huge fan of clowns and they are kind of weird. I've seen the movie 'It' and can somewhat understand people with this fear. Men wearing make-up, pants that fall down, annoying pranks. Doesn't seem too kid-friendly to me. But I don't fear them. 

Me as a clown, Halloween 1981

My fear doesn't even have a clinical name it's so weird. I'm a case study. I am afraid of watching people who are up high. No, I'm not afraid of heights myself. In fact, the first year we put up Christmas lights on our house, I preferred to climb on the roof myself rather than watch my husband climb the ladder. Lots of head shaking from the neighbors ensued. Now I just stay inside and hide when he's up there (and periodocally peek out to make sure I don't have to call 911.) But this fear isn't exactly unfounded. When I was about 4 years old my grandparents took me to the circus and I really had a great time. Right up until the end. The death defying moment when the human cannonball gets shot out of the cannon...and flies through the air... and misses the net. Yep, the human cannonball flew his last flight that day as this wide-eyed four year old took it all in. The circus was halted and we all watched as he was taken away in an ambulance with a snapped neck and not by the circus clowns dressed up as paramedics, but the real deal. And then, "The show must go on!" Cue clowns, ringmaster, music! Like it never happened. Well, that ruined the circus for me. I went a few other times after that, but I was terrified at any acrobat, human cannonball or  high-flying trapeze artist. No circus, no thank you. 

Fastforward about 20 years. My sweet, thoughtful new boyfriend surprised me with tickets to the circus! Yay! Great! The circus! How fun.... I didn't tell him until we got there about my past issues. I got nervous and sweaty all through the elephant act, then the tigers, then the horses. The knot in my stomach got tighter and tighter and then the trapeze act came out and it was more than I could stand. I actually had to run to the bathroom to throw up. Nice. Good impression, Stacie. But he saw my freak flag flying high and the man still stayed with me. Married me actually. At least he knew what he was getting into. And he never surprised me with circus tickets again. 

Fastforward another 10 years and 2 kids together. Last month my husband playfully mentions that the circus is coming to town. Ha, right, I thought. I'm not going to scar my children by taking them to that fiasco.

But then I thought about it and felt very convicted. That was my fear, my anxiety, my phobia. And it was irrational. And it ends here and now. I'm not going to pass this irrational fear and anxiety and nausea-at-the-thought-of-a-man-flying-through-the-air onto my kids! Enough! They have their entire lifetime to come up with their own crazy phobias. I don't need to add to that right out of the gate!

So we went to the circus! And I didn't throw up! And here's the video my hubby made to prove it!



And just so you know, they don't even have the human cannonball anymore. No, that is so 1999. Way too tame. Now they have the human torch. They light a man on fire and launch him through the big top where he lands on a inflatable landing pad while still ON FIRE and then the circus clowns put him out with fire extinguishers. I have to admit I may have tasted my popcorn a bit during that one. But he made it. And I made it. And my kids are clueless of their mom's crazy circus phobia.

Who knows, maybe this year I will even spot my husband while he's on the ladder going Clark W. Griswold on our house instead of cowering inside listening for a thud. Hmm. Maybe. Baby steps.