For two nights in a row I have kicked myself for lost photo opportunities. I was in such shock both nights, however, that taking a picture didn't occur to me until it was too late, anyway.

Last night, I put Bethany in her crib, which is still in our room, and walked around the bed to turn off my husband's lamp. Before I turned it off, however, I turned to look in his mirror. As I did, something caught my eye and all my blood drained to my feet. Reflected in the mirror was the biggest spider I'd ever seen in my life, and it was across the room, above the dresser next to Bethany's crib.

I walked closer to make sure I was really seeing what I thought I was seeing, moved toward the door to call my husband, then ran back and picked up Bethany. I frantically yelled for my husband and soon he was there, flanked by Jesse and Erica. We got Lonnie a step stool and a paper towel (at his request), and he reached up to squish the mega-spider.

Ever the back seat driver, I had to complain about the paper towel not being enough, and "What if you drop it, and it gets away??" It dropped, I shrieked, Lonnie sighed in exasperation, but found it again...hanging by it's two front legs from Bethany's dresser. Lonnie, a manly man, grabbed it in the paper towel and threw it away. I would have searched for our biggest dictionary with the greatest whomp potential and not taken any chances, chicken that I am.

After the spider's demise, I mused aloud, "Why didn't I get my camera? I could have blogged about it."

And then I had to wonder to myself where the homeschooler in me had gone. The last time we found a bigger-than-normal spider in the house, we caught it in a jar, looked at it for a bit, then released it outside where it zoomed beneath some rocks. I think I was pretty shell-shocked this time around, with something so freakish-looking being so close to my baby, and not knowing if it was poisonous.

Tonight, I was sitting by her crib reading a book while she dozed off to dreamland. For some reason I looked up, and above another window in the same corner of the room was another spider just like the one we'd killed the night before.

"Not again!"

And then, like last night, my hero husband comes in to rescue us from Goliath, and again I shriek as he's attempting to grab it. It drops right over my night stand, and I begin hyperventilating. "What if it goes under my night stand? What if it goes under the bed? What if...?"

But Lonnie finds it on the night stand itself (thank you, Jesus), and squishes it. To my credit, this time I did say (before it dropped), "Maybe we should try to catch it in something?" which was met with a "Why?" followed by the spider dropping, my shrieking, and the spider going bye-bye.

I'm thinking it's possible that both spiders came out of the heating vent in that corner, then crawled up the walls. Going by the research I did tonight, these are possibly fishing spiders and can be about 3" across or more (as these were). They are also called nursery spiders because of their maternal instincts (never mind that they were found in the "nursery" side of our bedroom). They're attracted to water -- we're a block and a half from a lake, but there's also a fairly high water table in the entire neighborhood -- and can even kill small fish. Regarding humans, they are supposed to be harmless. They don't build webs, but roam about hunting their prey. You know -- bugs, other spiders, little fish, small dogs...

Here's a fun (if you consider spiders "fun") website to look at with your kids.  I'll be showing it to my own tomorrow. The picture, below, is from that site, and is probably the same kind of spider we had, though I don't remember the stripes -- not that I got close enough to look....