I have been told that if you scream over the presence of an insect, your children will model your fear and scream and be afraid for the rest of their life. Well, I believe I have done well keeping any startling feelings from being seen by my girls. I'm not bothered by insects. I talk out the information about the bug so my kids will understand its function and characteristics, not to be afraid of the unknown creature crawling across the floor. So when my oldest daughter came into the living room last night crying from a spider, I’m at a loss over her reaction.
I can tell she was scared and upset. She explained that she was sneaking a couple more pages of reading Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince when in the dark a daddy-long leg spider decided it needed to be in the spotlight of the flashlight. It walked right across the written page, startling Celeste, and sending her to throw the book down and come rushing to me (she knows her daddy won’t go near spiders either). She began to become hysterical as she was recalling the traumatic incident. I had to do the yoga on her and had her deep breathe to calm down enough to lead me in the direction of the crime scene.
The hall light was not revealing enough to find a skinny insect. I had to softly step to Sierra’s bed to find my flashlight hiding under her pillow, trying all so carefully not to wake her – didn’t need that in Celeste’s time of need. We entered Celeste’s room again to see that the battery was dead in the flashlight. Meanwhile, there is no telling where this spider has gone. Having to have lost valuable capturing time, the flashlight was working and the search began expecting it to be fruitless. Celeste is still traumatized, crying louder as I look around. Poor Savannah, good thing she is a good sleeper especially through all the whispering, whimpering, and shifting of plush animals.
Her bed is deep in animals so finding an itsy bitsy spider is almost a joke. I look under her bookshelf, in the corner, under her pillows, through the toys, and in the wrinkles of her blankets. I’m not finding any signs and I’m losing patience and sympathy. She said she saw it last on the book before tossing it. I retrieved the book from between the large teddy bears to find three twitching long legs flattened in the pages. Well I found the stupid bug, great news for Celeste, but now I had spider guts smeared in my Harry book.
In the bathroom I pulled out the crumpled bug, wadded it in a tissue, and threw it in the trash all the while Celeste is apologizing through sobs for messing up my book. I had to reassure her several times that the smear was not her fault, not to feel bad, it was the bug’s fault for thinking it could read. Now the hard part - getting Celeste back into bed. From my experience, even when I was a kid, I would have found the spider irritating for interrupting my restful time in bed. For Celeste, the gates of Hell were opening around her bed. She wanted to sleep in my bed and I told her no way, no room. She asked to sleep in the living room. I told her no because I knew if I gave in to her fear, I will never get her in her own bed ever again.
She was really working the waterworks after I told her she needed to get in her own bed. She used how crummy the house was, how evil the room was to her, and how safe she would feel in my bed. I was not going to surrender to the tears. The tears were actually starting to annoy me because it was just a small spider and its short life was ended. Am I terrible Mom for feeling this way? A compromise was met with placing her pillows at the foot of her bed and making room by her giant panda for protection. I hoped having her at some distance away from the corner of doom will settle her down long enough for her to pass out and not be in my bed. She did stay put and did survive the darkness of the night.
After settling myself on the sofa to finish Last Man Standing, my hubby informs me that he just about yelled “the spider is on your back!” to Celeste when she first rushed in, thinking that would be sooooo funny to watch his daughter freak out. I informed him that he would be sleeping outside if he was to ever do that to one of his girls. He posted his idea on Facebook and to my surprise many friends and family agreed with him. I had to make my own comment to publicly make know not to encourage him. Thankfully I did have one brother-in-law on my side. Celeste was her cheerful morning self and I get to vacuum all corners of the house for any creepies.
