Life is Beautiful: getting over my phobia :)

Today I said to myself I am going to do it. Ever since I was little I had been terrified of spiders. Especially the big ones or the long legged ones. I would force myself to kill them myself eventually but it had to be with a book or a shoe or something else hard. :) I don't think I have a clinical arachnophobia because I don't freeze or get all weird if there's a spider but I still want someone else to kill it if they're around.

Anyway, today was Kade's class field trip to a Science Center and I was able to go as a chaperon. Audrey watched the 3 little kids for me which was so nice because I really enjoyed the little trip. It's fun to see what Kade's classmates are like, how they interact and I was surprised at how polite they all were. Sure, those boys in the back of the bus (including mine) were having a bit too much fun but they are really nice kids, they just want to have fun.

We were able to look at a lot of different science games/visuals and then they had a bunch of reptiles, fish, birds and stuff. One of which was a tarantula. :) They had 2, supposedly the bigger one is a bit aggressive so they didn't take it out but the smaller one was a nice one (whatever that meant) and a guy was handing her to the kids to hold. At first, as I got a very close look at the tarantula I thought no way I'm doing this and Kade was the same way. So we went off exploring some other things and somehow I kept thinking I need to do this. It's not so bad and I can prove it to myself I did it. Well, in the meantime Kade already held 3 snakes around his neck and he got braver and said he's going to hold the tarantula too. So off we went, we said we'd give it a try. I have to say, when that spider moves its big furry legs around in your hands it is something else. But the guy was very specific to "not drop her no matter what because the fall could kill her." :) And now that I think about it I wonder if he just makes it up so people don't freak out and he'd have to try to catch the scared tarantula. So here's the picture of my bravery. I am so proud of myself that I did it, I just couldn't leave the place without trying it, especially when my son could do it. :)

The picture below is of some of Kade's friends on the bus. It is just a whole different world we live in now. 8 of them, girls and boys all got out their Nintendo DS and they played Mario Brothers against each other. They giggled and laughed the whole time there and back, playing each other at various things. And even the kids that don't own one of those games get pretty good at it because they borrow friends' on the bus. Looking around the bus, there were a lot of tablets, ipads or ipods and as sad as it is, that is their generation and it is very natural for them unless they are sheltered from it all by their parents. I just wonder what are their kids going to do on the long bus rides 20-30 years from now? :)