Arachnaphobia

An ambiguous work situation combined with a sort of general malaise has kept me from posting much recently. As I mentioned before, the company I worked for (45 people) got bought out by a much bigger company (26,000 people). And there are the usual big company problems that go along with that. Very Office Space so far. I don't mean that in a throw my hands up in the air and scream kind of a way. It's more of a wait for things to sort out so we can get back to work kind of a thing.

I'm starting to see a little of a light at the end of the tunnel, and I'm feeling a little energized.

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Last week, I took the boys up to have a bath. We got in, and there was a spider the size of my fingerprint climbing in the bathtub. Yellow. Grotesque. I grabbed some toilet paper and grabbed it. BigBrother asked "What are you doing?"

I was already flushing the thing down the toilet and didn't answer right away. When I looked back at the boys, BigBrother was slackjawed. Horrified. After regaining his composure, he asked in a bleak tone "why did you do that? YOU KILLED THE SPIDER."

For whatever reason, in the 3 seconds I had between seeing the spider and flushing the spider, I hadn't thought of the fact that his favorite super hero is SPIDERMAN, and his favorite movie is "Charlotte's Web."

What did I do? I lied. "I, uh, didn't kill the spider. I sent it to a place where there are lots of bugs to eat."

BB:"No you didn't. He's going to drown. He was probably just going to catch a fly."
Me; "Uh, it was a bad spider."
BB: (still crying, but now growing hysterical) "Spiders are really very important creatures."
Me: "I, uh, just knew it was bad."
BB (growing more hysterical): "It was probably going to catch a fly up there. Why did you kill it?"
Me: slient (thinking of the scene in Parenthood when Gil sees his kid in a clock tower because he made him play little league baseball).

So it went on for literally 20 minutes. Finally, he calmed down, and went to bed. I thought we'd leave it at that.

The next morning, he climbed into bed with DearWife as I was leaving for work.

"Mama?"
"yes"
"I'm still very upset about the spider last night."

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On Sunday, I put the kids down, so DearWife could catch her SuperBowl (the Oscars). At first BigBrother didn't come out of his room at all, which is very unusual. So when we thought it was safe, we popped some popcorn. I looked up the stairs as I was going back with the popcorn, and saw BB at the top of the stairs with the "I'm doing something bad, but I'm still cute" look on his face.

"Can I come down and have some popcorn?"
DearWife and I looked at each other. "Sure."

For BB, staying up late, and watching TV was about as good as it gets. But to top it off, he got his very own bowl for the popcorn. His very own bowl. DW told him he had to go to bed when he was done, and he milked that popcorn for all it was worth.

He got to see Lighting McQueen a couple times, and was thrilled. DW and I traded off shielding his eyes during scenes from "Children of Men" and "Jarhead."

It was pretty cool.

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DearWife has Jury Duty this week. She had to go in yesterday (Tuesday) early, and M.I.L. was coming over to baby sit all day. Monday night on my way home, I get a call from DearWife saying that LittleBrother has a double ear infection (his first - BB has not had one yet).

Miraculously, he was great for MIL yesterday. Other than his bright red cheeks, and complaining when you put a hat on him, he seems to be ok.