Arachnophobia

When we were on vacation in Florida last week, Ed, Izzi, and I were hanging out in Mom-Mom and Pop-Pops backyard waiting for the Alligator to show up in the pond. (He did show up, by the way, but we only saw his snout and eye peeking out of the water for a few minutes).

Izzi had found a cool stick, just about her size, to use as a sword. She was marching around the backyard, swashing her sword, acting out her favorite fairytale – Beauty and the Beast. While she was sparring with the imaginary bad guys, she walked over to our bench and pointed to her sword and said, “Look, Mommy, it’s a Spider”.

Well, in case you readers have forgotten, I have a severe case of Arachnophobia. I can’t handle spiders in any size, shape, or form. My natural fight-or-flight instinct kicked in. I leapt from the bench, falling and screeching as I scrambled to get far, far away. (Don’t mind the fact that I left my poor daughter to fend for herself against the gigantic evil spider that was crawling on her sword).

It took Isabelle a few seconds to register what was going on, but she then became afraid…VERY afraid. She stood there shaking with the now-evil sword in her hand. Not sure what to do, she dropped the stick, started to scream and cry, and ran in the same direction I did.

Ed, in a moment of “what the hell is going on?” and trying to grab Iz to calm her down, started to laugh out loud at the scene. His two favorite girls, torn in a fit of fear, over a piece of….moss?

As it turns out, there was no spider. What Izzi thought was a spider was a big spiky (and kind of cool actually) piece of mossy grass stuff that grows around the pond in their backyard.

But it was too late. Isabelle is now afraid of spiders, and could possibly now be a lifelong arachnaphobe like her Mom. Sorry, Isabelle. Not all fairytales end happily ever after.