The Brave Mom

Last night Nathaniel came home at 11:30 after watching a movie with friends and when he came up to the house he saw this 2-inch long beetle. He covered it with a bucket so the rest of us could see it this morning. According to him this took great effort on account of his terrible fear and disgust.

So this morning when we did the great unveiling he was horrified to see that his mother actually touched it. (Well, I wanted to see what it would do.) It flailed its legs and made this weird rattling noise and I screamed. So then I had to do it again of course, and screamed again--and again. Then I remembered that we have neighbors, so I stopped screaming and just kept touching it to get that cool reaction. I put it in a jar so the kids can show all their friends today before we let it go. (Relax, it wasn't as if I was planning to keep it as beetle pet or something.)

Nathaniel thinks I am not a normal mother. Normal mothers don't tease their kid's friends. They don't laugh when they drew an "X" on your leg. They don't make up songs about how happy they are to have their kids back in school. Normal mothers don't threaten that if your behavior doesn't change and quick, they are going into your classroom wearing a bathing suit and sing. They don't laugh at their own jokes or when you are mad, or ask you random "what if..." questions.

The other day at Rebecca's soccer practice she spotted a snake and I caught it. Then I held it until John ran over and played with it. The other moms were stupified. "You're a brave mom!" 

Ok, well if it had stripes I wouldn't have done that. I never can remember that yellow/red kill the fellow rhyme to tell the non-poisonous from the harmless. But this was just a little gopher snake or something. I don't like rats (at all) and I detest cockroaches. If a mouse ever ran across the floor I might scream and jump up on the couch.

Once I was in a pet store buying a tarantula as a surprise for Nathaniel. Some big biker dudes were amazed to see me holding it. I said, "Well, you are holding a rat and I wouldn't even come close to that thing." 

Everybody has their thing, I guess. Anyone who saw how I grew up knows we are not a family generally afraid of bugs, snakes or spiders. But we all hate rats and cockroaches.

Who needs a normal mom anyway?