Monday, September 8, 2014

I suppose it was a romantic way to die...for a spider!

Well, peeps. It's been three years since my last post. Shameful. There's no other word for it. I mean, I'm not even sure I should even be allowed back on here...this place called "the internet." Do blogs expire? Have I expired? Sometimes I wonder if I'm ever going to recover my ability for intelligent thought. In fact, I'm worried there's a blog police out there somewhere who's going to find out I had the audacity to try blogging again. *hide me.*

Some serious life has happened in those three years. We've added to our "quiver full" and now have two more girls in the family! Rue is now two and a half years old and has turned out to be one of the feistiest, strong-willed, enthusiastic toddlers I have ever had the privelege to meet, raise, birth. All those things. She's rocked my world. Everything you thought you knew about how to deal with toddlers is officially obselete. I think she's a new breed of super human that requires discipline techniques that have not yet been discovered by modern science or psychology...(or just me.)

Thank you, Heavenly Father, for sending us Annie. She is the most calm, sweet child I have ever met...maybe that's her superpower. In fact, if she was a vampire, she would be Jasper and ooze out calming juice to everyone around her when things get tense. When she was first born, she could sleep through a Rue tantrum. And if you've witnessed one of those, boy howdy, you'd know what a statement that really is. I suppose all my kids have different super powers, Rue just hasn't learned how to harness hers yet. She's like Cyclops from the first X-men movie...before he got his visor. Just call me Professor X. I wish I could read minds...

*Sigh*...enough movie references. On to the story about the dead spider.

Motherhood is nothing if not full of hilarious anecdotes. What better way to re-start this blog than with one of those?

I was sitting on a bench at the park, multi-tasking as mothers often do. I was nursing Annie (discreetly, of course) and watching Felix and Rue play on the playground, then I felt a tickle on my face. Just a hair. Go away annoying hair, I'm busy here. Swipe-swipe. I quickly realized after swiping, that it wasn't a hair after all. It was a spider string. And now that string-less spider was homeless and decided he would search my shirt for new home sites. When it first fell into my cleavage, I resisted the urge to start shrieking, flapping, and hopping...that would work directly against my goal of nursing discreetly. So, I tried to get it out before it really got lost, but it was a wriggly and very uncooperative. It got lost...in there. It was gone. I couldn't see it. And I couldn't really feel it, but I imagined I could feel it everywhere. You know how that is? Once you imagine a bug on you, all of a sudden you think you're getting bitten all over. At this point I'm still resisting the urge to start doing the "get that spider out of my shirt" dance around the park, but in my head I'm screaming bloody murder. My goal soon changed from "find that spider," "to just watch to make sure the spider doesn't climb out and bite Annie on the face while she eats."

When Annie *finally* finished eating, I could really get down to business. My first search was fruitless. I'm still at the very public park, and even though there wasn't anyone in my immediate vicinity, I was still trying to stay dressed, despite my growing panic (discreet flew out the window). I decided I was really going to have to go for it, or go home. I won't go into details about my exact search methods, but I finally found it! Curled up. Dead. Underneath my right breast. And suddenly this was all very funny. I didn't have to strip at the park, or drive home with a spider in my shirt. And all I could think about was Anne Shirley when she discovers the mouse...dead in the plum pudding sauce. "I suppose it was a romantic way to die...for a [spider]!"