Gavin came in to our room yesterday evening and asked me to come get a spider that was in the living room. I had told him he could sleep on the couch, which for some reason loves to do. I told him I’d be up in a few. When I got up there five minutes later I found him hysterically crying and wandering around the kitchen. Apparently, the spider had weaved its way down and landed on Gavin’s pillow sending him into a full-fledged panic. I told him to go sleep in his own bed tonight and I went up to see about the spider. He was no where to be found. So I grabbed the pillow and brought it back down to Gavin’s bed. He wouldn’t touch it until I had changed the pillowcase, which I did. I assume that the presence of the cat made on his bed m feel safe enough to go to sleep, because when Henry came down and hour later Gavin was sacked out next to the cat.

My husband doesn’t understand why our kids are so afraid of spiders, but I kind of get it. When I was little I saw a show on TV about how insects are all around us, all the time. They climb on our eyelashes, and they live in our mattresses, sustaining themselves on our discarded skin flakes. I was at my dad’s house when I saw the show and that evening I did not want to get into bed. I swear I could feel the bugs crawling all over me and I began to itch. These aren’t bed bugs, mind you, these are just the mites that live on mattresses. I went to my dad, who thought I was being ridiculous and told me to go back to bed. “Good night. Sleep tight. Don’t let the bed bugs bite”, he said.