Spiders, Snakes, and Frogs - Oh My!

Since moving to our spacious home with an overgrown garden next to a miniature jungle in the adjoining lot, we've had a fair number of large spiders in our bathroom. A few have even sneaked into the indoor kitchen. But last night, I discovered one on the ceiling in our bedroom. Simeon, my 14 month old, had just woken up and was looking around for me. Philip and I both went in to pick him up and get the bedroom ready for the night. I scooped up Simeon and then noticed the spider on the ceiling. I've gotten better about not screaming when I see them, because that upsets Philip. He thinks that something is seriously wrong. So instead, I just kind of whimpered and held Simeon closer. Philip followed my gaze and nodded. He got his spider killing instruments: dust mop and handled dust pan. I watch from a distance. He smacked the ceiling with the dust mop; it soon became apparent that he was searching the whole bedroom. The spider had disappeared.

Now, there was no way that we were going to sleep in that bedroom without finding and killing that spider first. Philip looked under the mattresses, in the sheets. Then he looked behind a curtain and found the spider on the wall. He enlisted me to watch the spider so that if he missed, I could tell him where it went. Clutching a sleeping Simeon to my chest and training a flashlight on the fearsome eight-legged creature, my heart was beating unnecessarily fast. What did I think was going to happen? Sure the spider could bite and hurt me, but it wasn't poisonous, and chance were it was going to run away from me not toward me. Despite my logical thoughts, it was hard for me to calm myself. Philip swung at the spider, and missed. I did my job, pointing toward the cupboard it had run behind. We moved the cupboard, the spider ran to the floor. Smash! Philip finally got it. We could sleep in our room tonight. "Well, we wanted to do something together!" Philip rejoined.

As if I didn't have enough of an adrenaline rush for awhile, we had our second snake in the garden just before lunch this morning. I was looking for one of Simeon's toys. He tends to put small objects in various containers. We have several large (about 3 tall and 18 inches diameter) clay rain jars around that he especially likes to drop things in. I headed out the kitchen door to look in the jar where I have found his sippy-cup and plastic lids before when I saw a long black and green body climbing up the inside of that jar. I quickly called the girls to come around to the front door. I wanted to make sure everyone was inside and accounted for and wouldn't go near the snake. Then, I knocked on Philip's study door and told him about the snake. While he went to investigate, I did a Google image search. After some back and forth discussion with Philip and studying the snake's markings we concluded that it was a Golden Tree Snake - venomous but not poisonous to humans. I was so relieved and thankful!

Now since the snake could still bite one the children and cause pain, Philip wanted to get it out of our yard or at least out of the rain jar where it would feel trapped and be more aggressive. He tried to get it out with a stick, but the snake was quick and dexterous. Then he lifted up the rain jar in an attempt to dump the snake into a bucket. It just disappeared! Philip didn't know how a 2 foot long snake could get out of the jar without him noticing. He shuddered as he realized that the snake could have bitten him and he wouldn't have even seen it coming. We have not seen that snake again, yet. Hopefully, it crawled a tree and dropped over into the empty lot next door.

Now, I am not really afraid of frogs, but I had to have something to round out the title. One did startle me by jumping out from the edge of the sink as I was washing some dishes this afternoon. With spiders and snakes on my mind, sometimes I get a bit jumpy. I have been known to scream (just a small scream) as a gecko scrambled near me on the wall. Someday we want to move out of Bangkok into rural Thailand. I look forward to that time but NOT to the likely increase in creeping crawlies in and around our home.