Creepy, crawly and yet beautiful

These are some photos I took this week of the monstrous spiderwebs I have in my backyard. Seems I could knock them down on a regular basis, turn my back and the spiders will have spun them again.

We have big ol' spiders around these parts called wolf spiders and as much as I don't want to admit girly screaming tendencies I tend to do that in the presence of wolf spiders quite often. This, of course, amuses my children, who up until the point of my first spider-induced-scream thought I wasn't afraid of anything.

Little do our little ones know how frightened we Mommies are on a regular basis and it has nothing to do with spiders. Take for example, this week when my four year old son decided to cross two streets to his friends house and I thought he went next door.

It's official. I'm out of the running for Parent of the Year (not that I thought I had much of a chance).

I can't really put into words how terrified I was at the thought of him crossing those roads. When I realized he'd really run off that way, I almost started to take off after him, bare feet and all, even though he was no where in sight.

Panic subsided only slight once I spoke to his friend's mom. I was frantic and irritated that he assumed I'd given him permission when clearly I was on the phone, distracted. Something I still feel guilty about.

When I saw him I was washed with warm relief and I realized at that moment just how proud he felt that he had walked all the way there alone. He had no idea how scared I was or why he was in trouble.

"I looked both ways," he said through his tears, "You said I could come."

Did I? I just hugged him and cried.

Spiders aren't that scary after all.