The duties of a super hero

Being a mother is a dangerous profession. There are all sorts of scary things I have to do now. Like fishing poop out of the tub, cleaning out the refrigerator, checking to see if random undies lying on the floor are clean, and protecting sleeping children from Shelob-esk invadors. (yup we're a bunch of LOTR dorks over here)

None of these things bring me satisfaction or joy.....like at all, but to be a responsible adult one must very properly suck it up and deal. For some strange reason when it comes to creepy crawly things my eyes are immediately drawn to their hideous presence.  Such was the case tonight. As I went into our dungeon-ous basement to shut off the lights my eyes scanned the room and instantly I beheld the most gigantic spider nestled in one of the corners of our family room. Seriously I think I stopped breathing. Huge. It was HUGE!

So naturally I sat down to contemplate my options: I could squish it, catch and release, or leave it alone and wait for it to carry my children home to it's giant family. Of course I also couldn't help remembering horror stories of bajillions of wolf spider babies scattering upon the sqashing of the mom wolf spider.  Being the brave soul that I am I picked up the nearest shoe and planned my attack. After 7 minutes of staring the monstrosity down (and making absolutely sure it had no babies) I walked over to it and swiftly (sort of) brought my 6 year old's shoe down....of course it was in a corner so it scurried away from me a bit. I'm not going to lie to you, I screamed a little. In the end Shlob's cousin met with 3 more blows of the shoe...or it may have been 24 more blows. Who knows. All I know is that I played the hero tonight and it feels pretty great! Also, I will be hiring a different exterminator....like tomorrow.