Now that I am a mother, I am also....

Brave.

I had my first encounter with the infamous Huntsman spider the other day. Actually it was my second encounter, but the first was (apparently) a juvenile. Out of all of the deadly, poisonous, scary creatures in Australia, the Huntsman spider has got to be one of the worst. (It is not actually poisonous or deadly, but it is for sure scary!)

I was changing Stella in her room when down the hall creeped a GIANT Huntsman spider. It was the size of my hand...and hairy. It paused right in the doorway. I had heard of these spiders before, and had even seen a baby...well, this must have been the mother. I jumped around the room a bit, and did the creeped out dance and then realised that Stella and I were trapped. My instinct was to call Pete and have him come home from work to get rid of it...but my phone was in the other room. And besides, if I left this thing even for a second it could get lost in the house and I would never know where it was and I would probably never sleep again. So I formulated my plan. Pete has told me about these spiders before and the thing that was sticking in my memory was that they jump when you try to catch them. Ew. Creepy dance around the room again. But I had to get it. I looked for a box and the only suitable one was a pretty box that was given to Stella as a gift. No matter, it had to be done. I took the lid off the box and got into position. I lunged at the spider and threw the box down on it, but did not get it the first time. It was on the run, toward the house, this was it! I lunged again and this time managed to get the box on top of the enormous, hairy beast. But when I looked on the other side I saw that half of the spider was sticking out of the box, and I swear it was starting to lift the box up off of itself! So I did what I had to, I killed it. This was not my plan, I was going to trap it and call Pete and tell him he had to come home and deal with it. Anyway, after I was sure that we were safe I was able to make it to my phone and call Pete. The minute he answered the phone I erupted in hysterical tears. I started shaking, I was petrified. I'm sure this would have been my first reaction if Stella hadn't been there, but there was no place for that under the circumstances.

For those of you who doubt the scariness of this incident, I've put a picture below of the creature in question. It is a monster. I hate it.

From Spidey!