Our pet Puppy

After months of hearing my little boys scream every time they spotted a spider in the house, I decided I had to do something about it, no one likes a man who's afraid of spiders....or snakes for that matter, nothing emasculates a man faster in my eyes than being squeamish around creepy crawly things. My sister Heidi reminded me about her LOVE of spiders as a child and told me how she got that way. My mom is a lover of letting things live, seriously she would catch and haul every living creature out of our house unharmed. Spiders, bugs, flies whatever, I even remember an occasion once where we didn't cook for a whole week because some giant spider had built a web that hung from the stove hood down to range top. Every morning while eating our cold cereal we got a science lesson first hand, "see how many flies she caught?" "Look how she wraps them all up like little mummy's and saves them for later". Daily I saw the death struggle between some poor little fly and that giant torturer. Needless to say when a huge black jumping spider found it's way into our house one spring, my mom decided she(the spider) could move right in permanently, she named her "Puppy" and my sister Heidi got her first pet. Years later Heidi reminded me that because of this little experiment she overcame her fear and learned to love those creepy little arachnids.
Thus my thinking when last month I spotted a big, black, furry jumping spider on my celling, the boys were screaming and near tears when I decided to let the little guy stay. We named him "Puppy" and after weeks of spotting him all throughout the house, my boys have stopped acting like a couple of whining babies and can now pass within feet of him with nothing other than a passing glance and a quick "hello Puppy".
I do limit the rooms he's allowed in, and have on occasion had to move him, no nursery and not in the boys room at night, but other than that he's got free rein of the house. I prefer him to stay out of the kitchen but have made an exception if he promises to stay on the ceiling. Whew, I guess it worked for now at least my boys are boys again...tough boys!