Horse? What Horse? How about a Crib Note?

Tis the season of the birthday parties here (Dad and both daughters) and that means Momma has no time for her four hoofed kids. It showed when the farrier came. Lily was fine, Smokey was a brat - but he was just bored. We got it done, but fun it was not.

Plus its hot enough to smelt copper.

Hopefully this Friday will give me some horse time. Until then, here's a Crib Notes to get you laughing... I'm going to post part one of what is the tarantula trajectory:

Not our tarantula, but definitely her twin sister. Or brother.

First, some background. Our adventures with tarantula started on the last week of school:

Our youngest daughter, the one who still runs from moths, volunteered to take home the class pink-toed tarantula. Since I consider this one small step on ridding her of her bug phobia that has made spring such a delight, I agreed. This is despite my rather spotty record with tarantulas (I wrote about the wild tarantula incident four years ago, drop me a line if you’re really curious).

This sudden desire to have a large hairy spider for the entire summer was my first indication that the bouncy princess I have been dropping off every morning was being replaced by someone else entirely. Someone who didn’t mind having a tarantula and its prey - jumpy, noisy crickets which are ALSO bugs, by the way – acting out the cycle of life in her room.

Now let's fast forward to June for a Crib Note titled "When the Crickets Chirp":

So far our tarantula sitting duty has gone exactly as expected.

Disastrous.


If you ever find yourself having to buy crickets to feed a tarantula, remember, size is everything with crickets. In our case, I bought ones that were so small, they escaped their containment box. I managed to keep this hopping, jumping, buggy problem hidden from my children until I rounded up the escapees and taped up their enclosure.

I didn’t disclose the cricket escape because there would have had no room in our bed for adults to sleep since the kids would be too freaked out to sleep downstairs. Then our pet sitter and friend, Steph, thought the tarantula escaped while we were on vacation. When the news leaked out, it looked like we’d have to relocate upon our return since there was no way either kid would come back into a house with a loose tarantula.

Fortunately Fuschia, the renamed pink toed tarantula, was merely hanging out in a thick part of her web tunnel. On our next cricket acquisition trip I got a more appropriate sized crickets. Just one problem. Bigger crickets really make lots of interesting scurrying noises in their box. I was upstairs working when I heard a crash. We looked around but didn’t notice anything amiss.

Then, while I was outside I got a call on my cell phone – from inside the house.

“Mommy?” Mireya’s voice was so small, I had to strain to hear it. “There’s a cricket loose. I’m hiding upstairs.”

I rushed back inside to find both girls hiding out upstairs, and the entire box of crickets turned over in the living room. The cat was staring under the couch, twitching his tail nonchalantly, attempting to maintain an air of plausible deniability.

Fortunately, the crickets were easy to catch. Each one had suffered mild injuries during their cat encounter and full on hopping was no longer possible. It did mean a Saturday filled with sudden screams of AAAHHH!

Another issue is once a cricket gets to a certain size it can chirp. Chirping crickets, which has always been a signal to me to relax, are having the exact opposite impact on Mireya. Chirping crickets mean there are bugs in her room, which FREAKS HER OUT.

Who knew tarantulas only feel the need to eat periodically, and until then there’s chirping and therefore a little kid in our bed upstairs.

So, in case you’re considering adding a pink toed tarantula to your world take my advice.

Get a pet rock.