Saturday David and I took Ella to K-State's Insect Zoo. She wasn't hesitant about going since I told her that all of the bugs would be behind glass where she couldn't touch them and they couldn't touch her. She's so cool.
There was one section of the place that had a 'petting zoo' and she did touch the wandering leaf bug. In my attempt to get her to touch the other things, I had to go first. So I touched a giant millipede and a tarantula. Yeah. A TARANTULA! Which she did not touch, btw. Holy crap the things I do to try and be a good mother!
Generally I can handle bugs OK, especially in front of Ella because I don't want to transfer my fear/grossed-out-ness to her. I am very hard pressed, however, when it comes to roaches. I just can't stand the nasty, nasty, super speedy little shits. (I always imagine them crawling up my arm or something.)
So here we go, tra la la, through the insect zoo. All the way up to the big freakin' display of roaches. Ugh. I start to get a little uneasy, maybe feel a bit of a chill and perhaps hold back the urge to throw up. Now it seems very rational and likely that they will escape from their little glass boxes and crawl all over me. These are no little shits, as mentioned before. Oh no, these are BIG, FOUR INCH LONG mo-fo's that could take a person down if they wanted to, I'm sure. AND THEY HISS. Heaven help me.
I had to walk away.
Ella Grace, in her kind, unfreaked out by the ginormous roaches way, says "It's ok, Mama, they are behind the glass". Such a dear, sweet child. I say "Thank you, baby, I know" from my safe place way across the room.
I think I'll take another round with that tarantula.
Teaching mama how to be cool with bugs is tough work.
3 comments:
Eewww... bugs... eewww... Isn't there another kind of zoo to go to? Like the PEOPLE zoo aka the mall? What about the shoe zoo? Food court zoo? eewww..bugs...eack!
Did you see any Madagascar flying cockroaches? The kind that they use to eat on FearFactor!
Ella is such a cool kid. I'm so impressed by her fearless nature!
I don't blame you for being skeeved out by the monster roaches - I can tell you that I would NOT have touched that tarantula, so kudos to you for even setting foot in the roach exhibit!
very interesting zoo experience! Way to go trying to stay calm and not show your fear or that you're creeped out. As much as Dellaina loves to talk about and identify bugs on paper, she somehow developed this big fear of spiders and such. I remember the first time she saw one and came running to me. I thought, "I wonder where she learned that reaction?" I had an image of teachers at school freaking out, because I know I'd always tried to be very calm and curious around bugs with her. Heck, we have a pet spider in our windowsill in the kitchen that I don't have the heart to get rid of. I've slowly gotten her calmed down and she doesn't immediately turn tail and run when she sees a ladybug. Although, I admit, I also would use the fear a little bit at times, when she was going to climb in the dog house or wasn't ready to come inside yet, I might just throw something out there like, "no, let's not go in there, there might be spiders." Or mention a frog when I'm ready for her to get out of the bath (she has apparently seen some frogs in the playhouse at school and freaks out. I just mention her little frog legs and she starts looking around, "no frog!" Is that wrong? I was just surprised by both, because bugs are so small and she was always so curious before. Maybe the ants attacking her at the lake over the summer had something to do with it? Sorry, I guess I should have made this a post of my own rather than exploring it in your comments section!
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