By Cathe Carruthers-Hartung
It has been two weeks since that pivotal moment in our lives. I can’t believe how much it has changed everything. The impact on our day-to-day experience is tremendous. I am so tired of picking bugs up and taking them outside I could scream and I wish I would have handled the event better than I did.
I was making dinner and as usual, it was late and I was tired. Cede was under foot and complaining about my tardiness. I turned around quickly to throw something away in the garbage when I was nearly run over by a spider large enough to saddle up and ride. I startled and screamed before grabbing the fly swatter. For a week Cede walked around our house screaming at every spot of anything on our floor. It is fall on the farm, no one takes off their shoes because they will only be in the house for a second and so there is dirt posing like bugs all over our house. And that means there was a lot of screaming.
Photos by Nicole Jarvis
When that phase passed, she became increasingly interested in bugs. It is that time of year everywhere but especially on the farm, where bugs are plentiful in numbers and they are all trying to find there way into the house to die. Cede finds every bug, piece of dirt and lint and either picks it up or asks me to pick it up and take it outside. She patrols our house until she finds one and then repeats “bug, bug, bug” until I attend to the situation to her satisfaction.
She is nineteen months old and the world is all new to her. I struggle to control my feelings about touching bugs. Instead of searching for a piece of paper or lugging the vacuum cleaner out, I pick up the bug in my hand and toss it out the front door. I am always relieved when it is dirt or lint she has found. I do have my limits. I won’t, under any circumstance, touch a spider with my bare hands. Spiders have a good and wonderful function on this farm but their function is only useful outside and I don’t want them in my space. I don’t have a solution for my reaction to spiders because I won’t be getting over my arachnophobia any time soon.
Sometimes she gets brave enough to pick up the offending ‘bug’ and wants to take it outside herself. I don’t want her to be afraid but it is more than flies, box elder bugs and moths that make their way into our house. Wasps and earwigs also seem to be looking for something in here and they sting and pinch respectively. I don’t know what I will ever do if she gets brave enough to touch a spider before I can interfere. I shutter just writing the words. I am thankful that so far she wants the bugs outside and shows no interest in tasting them like everything else she finds.
I also have to admit that I got really excited about finding a lady bug the other day and the moth she showed me a couple of nights ago was truly beautiful. She let Grandpa put the moth outside which I was grateful for because she doesn’t really get the concept of ‘gently’ or my cautious words of “don’t squish it.” Sometimes I squat down and help her deposit the bug off of her hand and onto our deck – one leg at a time.
It is such a small challenge this bug phase. I have to deal with it every day from the time she wakes up until she is just too tired to be on bug patrol any longer at night. I watch the meth ads on TV and I worry till I am sick. How will I ever convince her to make good decisions, to choose friends that are good for her and boyfriends that are kind to her? How will I show her to have dreams big enough to keep her away from destructive behavior?
I study myself, searching for my own faults and fears and trying to figure out which ones I have to overcome to make her a better person and which ones I just need to acknowledge and move on. I follow my dreams every day because I want her to do the same. I haven’t yet been able to explain ‘gently’ but she does understand kindness and I already see her putting her kindness out into the world.
I hope I have the same luck with all the scary things that will face her. I won’t be able to explain them all too her and I can only hope that the generalities that I teach her will get her by. I want her to know the difference between a fly and wasp. And if she gets pinched, and I know that she will, I hope it is only once and that it doesn’t stop her from looking at all the rest of the beautiful bugs she can find. I hope she gets excited by the fluttering of a butterfly and that it will inspire her to find her own wings. I even hope that she can find the beauty of a spider on its web as it glimmers on a dewy morning – outside.
Photos by Nicole Jarvis
Cathe Carruthers-Hartung is a freelance writer who lives in the Moiese Valley. She and her husband raise beef cattle, wheat, corn and hay for a living. Her passions are being a mom to her one and half year old daughter, Mercedes, and riding dressage on the Thoroughbred and Lusitano horses she raises.
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Great story cathe! oops…someone posted two of the same picture?
Hey Nicole. Thanks for the heads up. I got the images fixed. That’s what I get for posting things after midnight. Thanks for sharing your photography skills with Mamalode!
*Laura Parvey-Connors, Mamalode MomGeek
Spell/grammer check……?