Pie-der

I'm not quite sure how it happened, but my youngest child (2) has discovered a new pastime that she seems to enjoy more than chocolate milk - making Mommy jump in fear. I know it might be frickin hilarious to a two-year old, but to me, it's ... Ok, it's still hilarious. What?

A few days ago, I saw a spider web on the ceiling. "Honey,  don't move, but there's a spider web above you," I whispered to my boyfriend.

"What?" he yelled. Not a surprised Oh-my-fucking-God-I'm-creeped-out yell because he understood and realized he was in danger for his life or anything. No, he yelled because he's going deaf in one ear. (Or maybe because the TV was loud, and the girls were yelling next to his head and dancing. On him. They were supposed to be tickling Daddy, and got side-tracked by the music from the movie, but it looked more like a military blanket party (without the blanket) than a tickle-attack.) So I muted the movie, told the girls to quiet down, and whisper-yelled: "There is a SPIDER WEB ON THE CEILING!!" while I went in the kitchen. (To get sippy cups, not to view the web of death from a safe distance.)

"So?" And he doesn't move. You just don't realiE how close to death you are.

"You know what, never mind, I'll get it myself!" See what I get for saving his life? Then he tried to extoll the virtues of spiders, blah blah. Whatever.

"You know, a true gentleman would kill the spider for me," I yelled from the kitchen while I poured chocolate milk. When I came back to the living room, he had his head on the wall, and his hand (is that a Kleenex?) on my couch pillow. Where I lay my head! Oh God, the inhumanity! OMG! Did he just drop it?! On my COUCH?!?! "What the fuck?!" He walked in the bathroom and flushed the toilet (which is an "approved-by-me" method of spider-disposal) while I was still trying to make it throught the gate from the kitchen. I vomitted questions at him: "Why did you put it on my pillow? Are you sure you found it when you dropped it? Did you check the tissue before you flushed it? Are you sure you got the spider?" Great! Now I have no way to verify the spider is dead! "And why did you put your head on the wall?"

"I fell." Too many words.

"Where's the spider? Are you sure you flushed it?"

"Yes, I flushed it." Don't make me scream, you know you hate it when I scream. What-ever!

Ok, the spider is gone. Allegedly. No, it's really gone. How do I know? Because it has to be gone, that's why. Daffy (my youngest) ran up to me, and I picked her up, giving her relieved, happy-we're-both-alive kisses. We're safe from any and all deadly spiders for the moment. Because there can be only one.(Spider at a time, that is. Obviously.)

"Pie-der," my toddler said. 

What? "What did you say, pumpkin?" That almost sounded like...

"Pie-der!"

"Oh my God, oh my fucking God! Where, pumpkin, where? Show Mommy the spider!" 

I put her down so she could show me the spider. (And so I could see the floor better. Floors are prime spider real estate. She just said, "Nite-nite," and went in her room. I was dumbfounded. I just stared after her as she walked away, and I was just so astounded, I couldn't even say a word.

I turned around to see if 'Daddy-AKA-Contributor-of-the-Ornery-Gene' noticed is little drama, and saw her father laughing his ass off! Ass-wipe! It's not funny! Ok, yes it is....

And then she did it again today. While I'm making eggs for her breakfast, she starts yelling, "Pie-der!" then she laughed and laughed, while I'm frantically checking the ceilings, the floor, the countertops...