Don't you want to be woken up this way?

My husband and I spent a few minutes this morning deciding (well, he had already decided) who would get up and get Mateo. Typically, without any sort of conversation, it's me. It just has been. And believe you me, when I realized this after going back to work, that weekend after weekend I would be the one getting up at 4 something, I was not too pleased. And then, I realized, if he slept in ("he" being the husband), then I got to take naps. And so I just let it go.

However, every now and then I get annoyed that it's expected that I'm the one who gets up at whatever time our little boy decides he wants to wake up and be forced to watch Bob the Builder or Caillou or Lazy Town (just about the worst show on the face of the earth) until the reinforcement decides to get up and entertain the boy.

This morning was one of them. And instead of telling my husband I wanted to lie in bed and be a vegetable I decided to do quite the opposite: I practiced passive aggressiveness.

I got Mateo changed and brought him into our room and plopped him on top of my husband and said, "Just like old times!" (when Mateo was still young, I would bring him into our bed with us on the weekends in hopes I would get a few more minutes of precious sleep). My husband, who loves his little boy more than he even realizes, didn't get mad, and perhaps he was slightly annoyed with me, but I didn't care. Mateo, on the other hand, wasn't having it, and got all freaked out that I plopped him on his sleeping father, and he wanted me to just hold him.

"He wants his momma," my husband said.

"No, he wants to lie in the big bed," I said. At this point I had grabbed Mateo because he really was freaking out for whatever reason.

"Don't you want to lie in the BIG BED?" I asked Mateo.

Mateo hasn't wanted to lie in the big bed for about a year now. While most parents would be happy with that, I'm quite annoyed because I'd much rather lie in the big bed while watching my Bob the Builder than on the couch.

"Fine," I said and left.

After feeding Mateo and watching some Jack's Big Music Show (a show I do like), I decided to start working on all the those fruit breads I need to make. I was walking over to the couch to get the TV remote when I saw it.

It being a very fast moving, mid-sized black spider. Perhaps the very same one that was tormenting me for a week.

I scooted Mateo away from the spider because I'm a true Momma Bear and I must protect my cub from the mean, evil, pest-eating spider. I really tried to hold back the screams and arm flayings I so desperately wanted to do, but even while practicing this willpower I knew I would have to learn when I became pregnant with Mateo, I did let out a little scream.

He didn't seemed fazed by it.

Okay, I thought. I have three options.

1. Go wake up the husband. Which wasn't feasible because the spider was heading to the kitchen and he was dang fast, and even if I was brave enough to skirt around him to get to our bedroom, the spider would be long gone when I convinced my husband to get up and kill him.
2. Let the spider go where ever it was meant to go and pretend I wasn't bothered that he was heading towards the kitchen, which is where I needed to be to make apple bread.
3. Kill him.

I decided I had to woman up and kill the spider. After I got Mateo away from the spider, I grabbed a couple (okay, like 10) sheets of paper towels, sucked in my breath, reached down and grabbed for the spider. I looked down. He ran from underneath my paper towel mound. I sucked in my breath and grabbed for him again, this time screaming in short bursts. After I got him and squished him, I ran into the bathroom to flush him, but then remembered paper towels shouldn't be flushed down the toilet. So I shoved the mound of paper towels into the garbage bin.

At this point, my husband opened the bedroom door and asked what was wrong.

Now, I must provide more information about my husband, my fear of spiders and our relationship. When we first moved in together, my husband was more than happy to kill insects and spiders for me, including the 3-inch cockroaches in our first apartment. It was that whole caveman mentality. Then my constant screeching must have gotten on his nerves, and now, no matter how I approach it (asking; screaming and asking; screaming, asking and throwing guilt trips; screaming, asking, throwing guilt trips and cursing at him), he gets really annoyed with me and my fear of spiders.

Personally, I think, it would be much easier for him to just kill the dang thing, or even herd it out the door for all I care, just so he wouldn't have to deal with me anymore. But no, he has to get mad at me and annoyed and turn it into a huge thing and not even slightly related to the fact that there is a spider ready to jump on me and bite my eye.

So when he opened the door and asked what was wrong, I answered "nothing," and walked out of the bathroom and into the kitchen, having a full blown case of the willies.

"What happened?" he asked again as he trailed me.

"Nothing, it's okay," I said.

"You're freaking out Mateo," he told me. Mateo wandered into the kitchen with a goofy grin and holding a toy.

"No I'm not. Look at him," I said.

"What was it?" my husband asked again.

"I'm not telling you because you'll get mad at me," I said.

"A spider?"

"Yes," I told him. "I KILLED IT."

He shook his head.

So that's how my husband was woken up this morning, and personally, I think it's all his fault. Because if he was a nice fellow and got up when Mateo first woke up and was talking away in his crib, none of this would have happened. And even so, if he wasn't such a jerk about my spider fear, I would have felt comfortable waking him up to ask him to save me. And even then, he should at least been pleased that I'm willing to sacrificed my fear of spiders to protect my child, who has no concept of how flipping horrible spiders are.