Godzilla

Anyone that knows me well knows that I don't do well with creepy crawly things.  In fact I usually end up screaming, hyperventilating and running in the opposite direction all at the same time.  Thankfully Dan is usually home when these events occur.  However since the kids have arrived I have had to grow up a little. 

Yesterday morning I was coming down the stairs with Isaiah when I spotted one of these crawling across the floor:

I froze, almost dumbfounded...and I began to think...why is this creature in here?  We have a huge front and back yard...isn't that enough for him?  Obviously not.  So I put Isaiah in our room at the top of the stairs, grabbed an empty box and called Dan.  Now why call Dan?  I mean what good can he do?  For some reason a phone call is a really reassuring thing for me and I was looking for a little encouragement...unfortunately all I got was his voicemail. So with no encouragement I headed down the stairs.  

Much to my dismay the lizard had disappeared.  My first thought was I can't stay in this house with a lizard...we will just go shopping.  But then I thought, if I go shopping the lizard could be anywhere when we returned...like the kids room.  So I decided that we should stay until I captured Godzilla.  The picture below shows where I first spotted him.  I used the kids alligator to show you roughly where he was...and yes, he did look that big to me. 

Thinking logically, I thought that the lizard must have just darted into the closet.  So I mustered up the courage to open the closet door...with my box in hand ready to pounce.  But there was no lizard.  I waited a few minutes...but since all of the kids toys were downstairs I decided that it wasn't fair to them to keep them upstairs with nothing to do.  I brought the kids downstairs and sat in the wicker chair closest to the entertainment center with the box in hand.   

So the kids were playing merrily along and I was freaking out thinking about all the places that this lizard could be.  My eyes were darting everywhere...it was very tense.  Time passed by and I was beginning to think that the lizard was just going to get cozy in the closet.

Just then the phone rang, it was my sister Becky.  I was just starting to explain my lizard dilemma to her when I noticed an ant underneath the wicker chair that I had been sitting in.  Thankfully I am not scared of ants...so I moved the wicker chair so that I could get to the ant.  And then I saw him (Godzilla).. he had been perched on the backside of the chair that I had been sitting in for the past ten minutes!  I screamed, Isaiah started to cry, which made Atticus cry...which made me feel really bad.  The lizard moved from one wicker chair to the other and poor Becky was still on the phone trying to make sense of the commotion.  I knew I had to act quickly...so I put Isaiah in the exersaucer and Atticus in the bouncy seat, just in case the lizard jumped on the floor.  I opened the front door, propped it open and slowly began to slide the chair towards the door.  I really don't know that I could have done it without Becky...she was my cheerleader.  Every time I moved the chair the lizard would move toward the top of the chair, like he was about to jump off.  I would squeal and Becky would say, "You can do it Carrie."  I finally reached the door, pulled the chair out and the lizard dropped to the ground. He tried to jump back into the house, but thankfully he couldn't jump that high.  I think that I would have cried if he made it back in.  

That little incident kept my blood pressure elevated for the rest of the day.  It also probably confirmed to my sister that I have officially lost it.   But I think that she may have already known that...I mean we did share a room for over 15 years.  I am just thankful that it is all over.  I gained a lot of knowledge from this experience.  I learned that lizards are a lot faster than I think, that they really are as creepy as I believed them to be, and that when pressed I will do what it takes to protect my kids from creepy, crawly things.