Spider Trauma

I'm a light sleeper.  I think most moms are that way.  So when my oldest son comes frantically racing into my bedroom at nearly 1 am, I bolt upright.  "A huge spider. In my room. Come now."  Jameson is no fan of spiders (and neither am I) but I was awake and Officer Long had to get up in 3 hours for a 12- hour shift so I handled it.

Jameson and I walked into his room.  No threatening spider to be found.  My first thought was he had dreamed it.  He began carefully searching his room, moving his toys and belongings with a stick.  I was almost to give up and invite him to sleep with mom and dad, when this leg appeared.  "There it is!" he exclaimed.  And the dark, large leg was a little imposing.  That is until I realized his "leg" was actually an antennae or whatever the hell those things are in the front of spiders.  Then the actual leg appeared.  Imposing?  Nah, lethal was more like it.  It was seriously the biggest spider I had ever seen in a home.  Realizing that whatever actions I took next (like completely freaking out!) would only spike my son's anxiety, I calmly instructed him to bring me a sturdy shoe.  I smashed the monstrosity and wiped it up with an ample amount of toilet tissue.  With only minimal post traumatic spider killing stress, I put my son in between the middle of his father and me and tried to go back to sleep.  After several minutes, Jameson announced that he was ready to return to his own bed.  In my mind I thought, really? because I wouldn't step foot back in that room.  Supporting his bravery, I led him to bed and we had another nightly prayer.

The next day, Jameson seemed none the worse for wear and Officer Long applauded me for my fearlessness.  Then we deep cleaned Jameson's room; moving out every piece of furniture and vacuuming every last nook and cranny.  Officer Long cleaned out the bedroom's duct work.  I felt renewed and more importantly, safe from abnormally large arachnids.

Fast forward exactly one week.  At almost the same time of night (or early morning hours) came my son sprinting into my bedroom.  "Another one!" he shouted.  This time I roused my husband.  He needed to see Shelob*.

Officer Long had me grab a bottle because he wanted to catch the unwelcome guest and find out what kind of spider we were dealing with.  After some research, we discovered we had a brown recluse or hobo spider on our hands.  If you want to lose your lunch or have a serious case of the creepy-crawlys, just google that one and while you're at it, google "brown recluse wound"... I'll leave it at that.

It may have been because I had recently started a new diet or I was sleep deprived from having my son in the middle of our bed, but I had a breakdown the next day.  And of all places, at work.  It's always nice to cry uncontrollably with coworkers present.

My boss (in the privacy of her office) assured me that I was justified to have a freak out and yes, I should sleep somewhere else tonight until the pest control/spider killers could come and spray.  Now I just had to convince Officer Long that we were past the stop-at-Lowes-on-the-way-home-and-pick-up-some-spray.  It was time to call in the big guns...you know the big guns that cost you big bucks to treat your home.  My sanity, not to mention my son's peace of mind were well worth the price.

So we checked our little family into a Best Western (thanks Jake for the discounted rate) and had a little swim vacation right there.  The boys loved it.  We all slept through the night and enjoyed the full spread breakfast the next morning.





*Google that one, my non-fantasy nerd friends