Mommy Long Legs

I caught a glimpse of spider life today and was actually encouraged by it. In my doorway there was a common Daddy Long Leg spider. At first it appeared to me that the spider's web was filled with tiny gnats and I thought, "Super! Better your web than my face! What a good little spider." However, upon closer inspection I found that the gnats were actually tiny baby long legs... er... well, short legs for now.




Mommy long leg? I never really thought about it and I don't know the difference between or the duties of the sexes of this particular species but I am assuming that this is Mom. Unless of course there was a huge sale on eight legged skinny jeans at Old Navy and she left the web early that morning to be sure she could get her size thus leaving Dad in charge. But lets pretend for a moment that spiders don't wear skinny jeans and talk about this Mommy long leg.

She hung in her web, surrounded by her offspring, dutifully showing them the proper way to wrap a fly and suck it dry. What a good mom! And look at all those babies. I'm sure she had to smack away a foot or two during her demonstration... "Don't touch that!" "Quit talking" "Don't web your sister"... LOL! Good thing she has 8 legs of her own. I count at least 37 baby spiders in that web! If she can web school with 37 surely I can home school with just 4. :-)

As I gear up to start home schooling my kids I am met with an uncontrollable fear that I will certainly do a terrible job and that my kids will become lazy mooches. I often feel inadequate, uneducated, scared and overwhelmed. Tonight James was talking about having school at home and I asked him why he thought we home schooled. He answered with something about not listening and disturbing the other kids. I smiled and assured him that I knew my kids would be the best in the class. I went on to say that we decided to home school because we wanted God in every part of our lives. And who better equipped to teach a kid then his very own Mommy? As soon as the words were out of my mouth a calm swept over me. I was their Mommy. God had chosen me to be the steward of these beautiful children... and surly He knows what He is doing.

Now, if only I could sprout six more arms...