The Itsy Bitsy Spider

I will be the first person to tell you that I do not like spiders. I recently told a friend how I put on a brave face for my children when we look at spiders. I tell them that spiders are beautiful, we sing the "Itsy Bitsy Spider" song to them, and I explain that they are one of God's special creatures. As soon as Eva and Jaden look away I can't stomp on that little sucker fast enough. Yes, spiders are on my list of things that make my skin crawl.

Until recently.

We had a rather large spider spin a web underneath our hummingbird feeder. This is very close to our window so we could see the spider closely and watch her spin the web. I'm not sure why, but I decided not to tear the web down. During the last week Eva, Jaden, and I have spent a lot of time watching this spider, and we have affectionately named her Charlotte.

We have watched Charlotte continue to spin her web. We have watched her catch insects in it. We have seen how she spins silk around the insects and leaves them in her web until she is ready to eat. We have even watched her eat the insects she catches. Eva was very excited one morning commenting that, "Charlotte is eating her breakfast while we are eating ours!!!!"

We have found that Charlotte's favorite place to sleep is under one specific flower on our hummingbird feeder and she curls herself up with her legs tucked under her. We've noticed that she seems to sleep quite a bit during the day, but is very busy with her web at night. I never, ever thought I would say this, but I am starting to really like Charlotte. She has become our friend and watching her has been interesting...as well as an amazing learning experience for all of us.