The bad by-du

This morning I was standing at the kitchen counter fixing bowls of cereal for myself and the twins, when Baby A suddenly said "By-du!" A spider? I looked around. Baby A was pointing at my feet. My bare feet. I backed up and looked at where I'd been standing. There, hanging upside down from the bottom of the counter, inches or maybe not even that far from where my feet (my bare feet) had been, was a big black spider. Not as big as the one in the garage last weekend, but bigger than I like to see in the house. And worse, it had a particular look to it that I didn't like. It looked like the by-du that lives right outside our front door, and the by-du that lives on our patio, the by-dus that only come out at night.

I called for Rocket Boy but he was in the bathroom, getting ready to go to work. "Stay here with Mommy," I told the babies. "Don't touch the by-du. It's a bad by-du." I felt sad. They have no fear of spiders yet. They like to pick them up and play with them. I have tried hard not to transmit my own arachnophobia to them. But some by-dus ARE dangerous. Some by-dus can kill you, especially if you are only two.

The moment RB emerged from the bathroom I said "We need you!" and he came right in. "What's the problem?"

I pointed. "You need to get rid of that by-du."

He looked at the spider. "Is it a widow?"

"I don't know, but it doesn't look good."

RB captured the spider using two plastic cups, and then studied it through the plastic. Sure enough, there was the red hourglass. He took the bad by-du way out to the far side of the front lawn and released it.

A black widow spider in my kitchen! What is it eating? Cockroaches? Black widows usually stay outdoors. I've never worried about them in the house before. Guess now I have to worry.

The babies were very interested in the whole proceedings: the by-du itself, what Da-da did with it, and those cups he used.

Late in the afternoon, after their nap, they came out to the kitchen again. Baby A said "By-du!" I looked around nervously, but then realized he was pointing to the two plastic cups which RB had put back on the counter. "That's right, Daddy used those cups to catch the by-du," I said. "He put the by-du outside. That was a bad by-du. It needed to go outside."

The babies listened to me solemnly. "By-du," they murmured. Thus is innocence lost.