The Beast in the Basement

Upstairs there is pandomonium, the girls are getting ready to go to their Dad's house. Elijah is following them around trying to get them to pay attention to him.

Rosey and I are in the basement, getting her soccer clothes out of the dryer. She's talking about something that happened in school, I'm pissed at myself for not washing her soccer clothes the night before.

Approximately a foot to the right of Rose, wriggling out from underneath a pile of clothes, comes a horrible black spider. Just writing those words make me feel tingly (in a bad way).

*Deep Breaths*

Rose jumps and screams. She is not usually afraid of any insects (which is absurdly lucky for me, considering I'm afraid of all of them), but this spider is particularly large and nasty.

She makes her way over to me and we stand side by side, paralyzed by the spider's slow moving progress. I rationalize that it's about to die, and that's why it's moving so slowly...

*Deep Breaths*

...but I'm pretty sure it's just messing with us. Made bold by our screams the spider sits in the middle of the floor and chills for a while.

"Rosey. You're going to have to kill it. I don't have shoes on." I'm whispering and my voice is actually shaking. I'm sure this is not inspiring any confidence in Rosey.

"No way Mom." She shakes her head. "I'll give you one of my shoes."

"ROSEY! I can't move." Now I'm shaking my head.

We look at each other. I'm almost ready to force her to kill the spider under threat of grounding or time out or some other absurdly cruel method of torture. She has a moment of clarity before I can do this.

"MAXINE!!! Max!!! There's a big spider down in the basement! Come here."

Ahhh, yes, Rosey is a genius. Maxine is our resident Spider Slayer (when Jeremiah is not home). Last year she killed a simliarly giant spider that had taken our bathroom hostage. She saved the day that time.

Max cautiously makes her way down the steps and into the basement. Oddly enough, she's in nothing but her underwear and a pair of mittens. I decide to question her about what she was doing another time. She's got a tupperware container in one hand and a paper towel in the other.

That's my girl. Come to save the day, yet again.

But the elation is short lived.

"Oh my. No way. Sorry momma...." and she rapidly flees back up the steps.

Rose and I are on our own, trapped by a mythic beast of epic proportions. She's rattling off the names of poisonous spiders in our area. I'm thinking of pushing her into the spider, my logic being that either her weight would demolish it enough, or that the adrenaline of being pushed into the beast like creature would give her the gumption to smash it.

*Deep Breaths*

"Rose, I'll give you five bucks if you kill it, JUST SMOOSH IT...it will be all done...and we can go upstairs and never come back down here ever again."

"Hmmm.....how about a mini laptop?"

"Are you kidding? You're 9."

"I'll be 10 in little over a month."

"No way. What else?"

"A trampoline?"

"Done."

Rose takes off her shoes, smacks the spider and calmly trots up the step to show Max the smashed carcass.

I gather up the clothes and run up the stairs behind her, left with the curious feeling that I was just played.

So now I need to get a trampoline by the 23rd of May. Any suggestions?

AND DID YOU SEE THE NEW HEADER!?!? I love it. The kids have already picked out which baby birdies represent them.

And I'm not totally happy with the tagline I came up with...but I can change it at any time so...I'll quit my bitching.

Thanks Again to Pink Designz! She tells me she still owes me a background...although I'm not sure what can trump that awesome header!