Wednesday, July 17, 2013

The scariest spider ever

If you know me personally, you may know of my severe arachnophobia. An encounter with a spider = shaking, nausea, inability to concentrate on anything else, and likely nightmares for days. Especially the ginormous ones in the somewhat southern state in which I live. Upon moving into our house, I had signed up for pest control and pledged hundreds of dollars per year via my credit card before the 3rd box was unpacked.

Today while playing with the kids, I happened to glance into a vent in the floor and saw my worst fear. A huge hairy wolf spider just sitting there waiting to terrorize me. Fortunately, my 4 year old son is not afraid of any bugs and usually takes care of them for me. However, I did not want this thing in my kitchen so I would not let him take out the vent. I thought (prayed) it might be dead but to verify, I had him throw baseballs at the vent to see if it moved. This was exciting for him on multiple levels -- not only was he mommy's hero but he was allowed to throw a baseball! In the house?!

It did not move. Okay, must be dead. Now how to dispose of the carcass...

Pest control was already scheduled to come today to deal with the bees outside. (This would have been a much better story if they came out SOLELY to deal with the spider... You'll see why in a minute.) So after the technicican knocked down our nests and sprayed outside, I asked him to come inside, take out our vent, and dispose of the terrifying arachnid giving me an ulcer. So he put his paper shoe covers on and entered my living room. He lifted the vent while I stood 20 feet away in horror.

To my surprise, he said, "The spider must have gone back down the air duct."

What?! It was ALIVE?! I tiptoed closer to peer over his shoulder and saw it! It was right there in front of him!

"That right there! You don't see it?!"

He then proceeded to pick up the "spider", show it to me, and say, "Ma'am, this is a piece of lint."

Sunday, July 7, 2013

A familiar road

I began writing this blog when my eldest son was 2 and my daughter was an infant. I was adjusting to life with 2 kids as well as learning how to potty-train a toddler. Thus, many (most) of my posts were pee / poop related. There were just. so. many. stories to tell.

Well that little infant is a full blown 2-year old now in the throws of potty-training herself. (By the way, we DID finally get our son potty-trained. It only took a measly 15 months start to finish.) And we have a new infant in the house -- a 19 lb. 4-month old who loves to be held. A lot.

I don't have as much time to blog as I used to so there are a lot of new potty-training stories that will unfortunately have to be omitted. But this latest one is a real winner so I made myself find time to sit down and write.

My uterus is officially retiring so we are beginning the baby purge as our little (enormous) guy grows out of things and therefore held a baby stuff garage sale. I was outside manning the tables and money; the big kids were playing nicely inside. Not fighting, miraculously. I was thrilled. It was a nice break being outside in the fresh air without them pantsing me, fighting over the last red popsicle, or bringing me bugs. However, after not having any child visitors for a curious amount of time, I popped inside to check on them. They were both laying on the playroom floor -- one on the computer, the other on the LeapPad. I immediately noticed a large circular stain on my daughter's bottom (as she was laying on her stomach). She looked up and said, "I peed." Um, no. The stain was brown. Oh shit. Yes, pun intended.

I whisked her to the bathroom as quickly as possible. It was as a bad as I had prayed it wouldn't be. Worse.
Underwear: garbage.
Shorts: garbage.
After cleaning her up, as well as the floor and well, pretty much the entire bathroom, I headed back to the playroom to check on the status of the carpet in there. Walking through the kitchen, I slipped and almost fell on my butt. What...is....that??!! Yep, some diarrhea poop had fallen out of her clothes onto my kitchen floor, and yep, I just slipped in it.

Flip-flops: garbage.