Black Widows and Poison Control

Did I catch your attention with that heading? I figured I might.

Yep. I said it. And no, those 2 things don’t go together. But don’t worry, everybody’s fine.

Let’s start back at the beginning…

This morning was pretty perfect, with the exception of waking up to Will telling us he peed in the bed AGAIN. And the sound of construction outside our window. But that was a good sound. That sound meant that our new deck was being finished. These are the best before pictures I have…

They really don't capture how small it was, or how nasty. The paint was peeling off everywhere, which left lots and lots of splinters. It was really just falling apart very very quickly.

But here is what it looks like now!

Anyways…Will and Scott went to their soccer game bright and early while the rest of us were super lazy doing who knows what. At some point after the game Scott went outside to start mowing the grass. Before he even started though, Will tripped in the driveway and got a big gash in his knee. Thankfully it wasn’t ER-worthy, but looking at it almost made me throw up. Thank goodness for Scott.

So I’m corralling everyone else back inside the house so Scott can take care of Will. Which means they are in the bathroom; Will is on the counter and Scott is cleaning up the cut with rubbing alcohol. Next thing we know Benjamin is doused in rubbing alcohol and is pulling the container away from his mouth. Yep, he took a swig. Or two or three. There is no telling how much he consumed, because we don’t know how much was in there to begin with, and he spilled a lot of it down his shirt and on the floor.

So I’m trying to take care of Will’s bloody knee and I have no clue what to do, Will’s still crying because it hurts so badly, Scott’s trying to get Benjamin to throw up, and then I start freaking out a little bit because Scott gets the phone to call Poison Control.

We have now joined that club. It took us 6 ½ years and 4 kids, but we are now there. So thankful that Benjamin is fine. They had us monitor him for about an hour, and they called twice in that time to check on him. Other than acting a little bit goofier than normal, he seemed fine.

Total change of subject now. Will was teaching us all about Black Widows this morning, and Scott told him that he used to find and kill those all the time in Florida. I’m thinking, what? I have NEVER seen a Black Widow before. Crazy! Will thought it was pretty cool. Fast forward a few hours and we are all outside playing and whaddya know? Scott finds a BLACK WIDOW SPIDER IN OUR YARD! Everyone thinks it’s awesome but me, who’s kind of freaking out.

Later on while Will and Kirstine are bug hunting, I inform them that if they should happen to find another one, to make sure and get far far away, but to also let me know so I can take a picture of it.

And here you are. Yep, they found ANOTHER ONE! I am so kind of freaking about this. Seriously? Good thing is they seem to be pretty slow and easy to kill, but, really? I’m NOT happy about there being Black Widow Spiders in our yard.


Is this normal? Not that scared part, but the fact that they are in my yard.

Oh yeah, forgot to mention that Will thinks the second one almost bit Kirstine before they called me over. Yeah.

Here's another fun picture of Benjamin with his obsession with girls' shoes...

And what did I do with the rest of my day?

Scraped paint. That’s my new job. I’m spending every moment I have scraping 18 layers of paint off of our handrails so we can repaint them. Cuz they look awful!

And now I have carpal tunnel.

OH YEAH… When I came back inside, this is what I found…

I love my life!