I don’t know when I turned into such a girl. It’s late spring, and the warmer weather has brought out lots of interesting creepy crawly things. Caterpillars, ants, bees, spiders, and more are all over the place. And suddenly, I, the girl who played with worms for hours as a kid, can’t stand any of them. The twins are curious and want to know what everything is, and are willing to pick many of them up. I don’t want to turn them into wusses about bugs. The kids who wouldn’t come near the caterpillars in our butterfly life cycles unit when I was teaching drove me nuts, but I still find myself telling Alex and Avery not to touch anything. And I can tell they are getting sort of freaked out, because Avery does the same little shiver I do anytime a bee is near, and they both say “Oh no!” and show me every spider web in their clubhouse. For some reason I have it in my head that the little hairs on the caterpillars can hurt them, when I know I used to pick them up as a kid and don’t remember it hurting. Alex managed to sit in an anthill in our neighbor’s yard last week and was crawling in them, head to toe – the BIG ones. I’m so glad none bit him, but I had to strip him naked in the yard and swat them all off. Eeeew! I get skeeved out just thinking about it as I type this. I’ll be better when the lightning bugs come – they don’t creep me out, at least.