Is arachnophobia hereditary?

Ever since I can remember I have been afraid of spiders. I can't stand them, hate them, don't want to be in the room with one. They scare me, totally freak me out. I still remember waking my dad up at whatever hour of the morning (I read really late) to come and take the spider out of my room, I couldn't do it myself. I remember trying to suck one up in a vacuum and crying so much that my whole body was shaking because there was no one else there to get rid of it for me. Evey friend I have ever had has known just to get rid of a spider for me without telling me that there is one, that way I don't freak out. I remember the very first nightmare that I ever had was about spiders. I can't even touch a picture of a spider, it just gives me the heebie jeebies. You know how most older brothers will tease you with the things you are scared of? My brothers never did that with spiders, they knew that spiders were the one thing that you just kept away from me.
I think I have passed this on to T*. She will call me or her dad whenever there is a spider in her room, or any other room that she is in. She has scared the crap out of me by screaming in the car because there is one somewhere in the back (almost caused an accident a couple times). She will not let it go until you go up and kill it, and honestly I can totally relate to her. As much as it creeps me out, I have found the one thing that lets me get close enough to a spider to kill it, that is T*. I don't want the spider anywhere near her, so I am able to kill it to keep it away from her. Hopefully she will be able to do the same thing for her daughter, unless arachnophobia skips her generation......

Just singin' along

I guess you never really notice how often you listen to the same songs until you realize that you know all the words. I tend to pick up the words to songs that I like fairly quickly, if I can't figure them all out on my own, then I will look them up. I am thinking that T* is just as quick as I am. It always amazes me when we are driving along listening to a C.D when all of a sudden I can hear this little voice in the back ground, just singing along, only missing a word here and there. It's so funny and cute at the same time. I think the craziest part of all is the songs that she knows. Now I do have kids C.D's in my car, but they do get a little annoying after a while, so usually I have some of my own music on. T* learns most of the words just from being in the car. One of the first songs I hear her sing was Enter Sandman by Metallica, it was soo funny! T* was about 2 1/2 3 at the time, then there was Beautiful by James Blunt, now it's a huge mix of songs, anywhere from Taylor Swift, to Rise Against, to Paramore, to Pink. It's so cute hearing this little voice in coming from the back seat. She has her favorites too, she never fails to ask to hear them again and again. I have had to tell her a few times that if you listen to the same song to many times then you wont really like it anymore, it will get annoying, but she doesn't believe me, she tells me that she will always love whatever song it is. I wont prove it to her because I actually like these songs as well and I don't want to get sick of them!
It's rather enjoyable driving along singing with T*, I really have a lot of fun with it. I am hoping that she keeps her music tastes eclectic as she grows up. I have always been into a huge variety of music, it doesn't always make sense how I jump from genre to genre, but I enjoy it. I hope that T* has the same kind of love of music as well!

1 down, 19 to go?

A few months ago at T*'s last dental check-up we were told that she had some teeth lose, 4 to be exact. The first 1 has finally fallen out! It looks so cute to see her little smile with a hole in it. It makes me kind of sad though, it means that my baby is really growing up, pretty soon she wont let me call her my baby at all! As proud as we are of our kids as they grow up, it's rather bitter-sweet. On the 1 hand it's nice to see our little ones getting bigger and becoming more independent, but on the other hand it means that they don't need us as much anymore.

Anyways, I made T* a nice little 'tooth pillow' to put her tooth in so that the tooth fairy can find it and have somewhere to put the money. Now all I have to figure out is what the going rate is for teeth these days.

New book, new author, new friend

I just read one of the best books! I honestly didn't want to put it down, I took it with me when I went out just in case I had the time to read for a bit.
It's called 'The best day of someone else's life' by Kerry Reichs, and I just loved it!
It's about this girl who is obsessed with weddings, beginning with the first wedding that she was in at the age of 6. From then on she dreams of her own wedding day, planing ever detail. It then moves on to present day when she is in her 20s and either taking part in her friends weddings or just attending them. I wont go in to the whole story or I will end up telling all of it. But it's such a great read! It's ridiculously funny (Kerry Reichs has a great way of telling a story), poignantly sweet, thrown in with heart break and love, it really gets to your heart. It explores the ideal of marriage that everyone believes when little and moves on to a more accurate and mature reasoning as the book goes on.
I truly love this book and am looking forward to reading anything else that she writes, I'm hoping to find her other book tomorrow so I can read it right away.
What makes it even better is that Kerry Reichs is the daughter of another of my favorite authors Kathy Reichs. They write for different genera's, but I think that just makes it better. I have read all of Kathy Reichs' books, and now look forward to reading those of her daughters as well.
Really a great read, so happy that I picked it up at the bookstore the other day!

I really like you

Yesterday I had some shopping that I wanted to get done. So when T* and I got up in the morning I gave her 3 choices: we could have breakfast at home, go to Tim Horton's and get something on the run, or we could go to a restaurant, just the 2 of us, and have some pancakes. She thought about it for a few minutes and decided on the pancakes. The two of us have never really gone out to eat somewhere, just us, sure we've eaten at the food court in the mall or had a quick bite at a fast food place, though usually that's on the go. This would be the first time that we actually went to a restaurant, just us, to eat.
--I've actually been looking forward to this kind of thing for a while now, I've been waiting for a time when we could do something like that without me having to constantly tell her to eat, a time when we could actually talk a bit.--
So we got ready and headed out. We went to this nice diner where they serve breakfast all day, have good prices and good food. We both got pancakes, T*'s were chocolate chip, a very rare treat, I usually don't let her eat chocolate (or any other junk food) before lunch, but hey it doesn't happen all the time. We sat at our table talking and coloring while we waited for our food. It was really nice, it was a great breakfast and I really enjoyed myself.
As we left T* was holding my hand while we walked to the car, she looked up at me and said " I really like you" I kind of laughed a bit and said " I really like you too". It was one of the sweetest things T* has ever said. She's a very loving girl (most of the time) and will randomly walk up to me and give me a kiss or a hug, tell me she loves me or that I'm the best, but I just found it really sweet that it was so matter of fact the way she said it. Sweetest thing ever!
The rest of the day was pretty good too, very few arguments during our shopping trip, or after we got home (actually I don't think we had any arguments at all until we got home). Truly a great day with my little sweet heart.