Brave One

Some of you might be wondering why I haven't blogged much about Joanelle's visit. Sometimes it is just too hard to write down all of the happiness an event can create, so I wait for a while until some of it has been distilled and the resulting concoction becomes a rich, full bodied text that reflects the wonderful essence of the event rather than the boring, daily happenings.

All of that to say: I'm not use to being the "brave" one of the family. Really, I'm not. I'm the scaredy cat. I'm the one that throws my plate of food in the air when a bee buzzes by. I'm the one that runs all the way home because a dog started to yap at me. I'm the one that would never touch slugs, potato bugs, worms, frogs, snakes, ants or lady bugs. I'm the one that accidentally boiled my mom's fish because I turned the thermostat up rather than the light, and then I made Emily clean them out because "I just couldn't". (side note: mercy ended up doing all the dirty work!)

The deck is stacked against me in this department. I'm the frightened one. At least, I was until Joanelle came to visit us for five days. I realized something was different when a cricket hopped by me, and I just watched it while Joanelle practically climbed over me and into the house, or when the Love Bugs winged their way by my head, and Joanelle screamed. I realized that some part of me must have become comatose because I started to laugh when Joanelle and Emma freaked out about the crickets hopping across the pavement in the parking lot. It IS cricket season, but they won't hurt you. I started to laugh at myself when I heard my mouth utter those words. How many times had people uttered those very words to me, and it hadn't made any difference?

And then I realized, why would I be scared of a tiny frog 2 inch frog when I'd had a bull frog leap across my path? Why would I be scared of one of those measly little wasps when I had battled with a 5 inch RED wasp on our back porch? Why would a dragon fly or a honey bee frighten me? And crickets are nothing compared to 4 inch cockroaches, even the extra large Texan crickets just don't compare. And last night, Tanner squashed a spider that was about an inch in diameter, so why would a wolf spider scare me?

So, suddenly, I find myself occupying the strange seat of "brave one". I'm the one that squashed the spider at the park so that Emma would stop screaming. I'm the one that swept a dead bee over to the gutter. I'm the one that told the girls, very sternly, to quit screaming it was only a mosquito.

Now, before you think that Joanelle's reactions were over rated, let me set you straight. The mosquito was about twice the size of a Portland mosquito. The honey bee was the size of a yellow jacket. The spider was a dark, ugly, black and had eyebrows. Everything in Texas is bigger, including the bugs. I don't think Joanelle will move here any time soon, but then, Hawaii has some pretty big bugs, too...