Or both?
I almost called this post “Cute or Gross,” in the style of Cute Overload‘s Cute or Sad feature. But then I thought, there’s virtually no context within which I’d call a spider cute.
Yep, I said spider.
As I’ve mentioned before, I’m not a fan of spiders. In fact, I’ve been terrified of them for most of my life. RD Husband has accused me of passing on my fear to our boys, so I try to go out of my way to be super nonchalant and chill when both kids and spiders are involved.
The three-year-old and I were out on the playset yesterday, and it was pretty much riddled with spiders and webs. There was a massive one literally covering the entire opening from the playhouse to the slide. I did my best casual, “hey, look at these cool webs!” And then, we really found a cool one. Not only was it still inhabited, I’m pretty sure the owner was in the middle of breakfast.
We actually saw it spinning some web around the prey; it used its back legs and spun the bug it had captured around and, I think, covered it with more web.
When I showed this spider to the three-year-old, I told him to come closer to look. He wisely replied, “Not TOO close.” But he was interested. So depending on your perspective, this was either a parenting fail since I’ve passed on some of my fear of spiders, or a parenting win since I’m trying to help them appreciate these buggers. From a distance. I’ll let you decide.
Please also decide whether this post is cool or gross.
Now this is funny. I say it’s a parenting win, ’cause knowing not to get too close to wild things is a good rule of thumb. Big thumbs up to you for taking a closer look — isn’t it fun to see what surprises you find?