Cricket Fear

During my lifetime, there are countless ways and means that I've been able to overcome my fears. Sometimes it takes a long time and practice and using several different methods before I felt I had conquered the problem. This is about one of those times when I was forced to face my fear and get over it quickly. It all started when my friend asked if I could watch her son's lizards while they went out of town. I asked the typical questions, "Do I have to touch them?, Do they bite?, How do I feed them?" I decided that I could "watch" Lizzie and Sport, as long as I didn't have to feed them the live crickets. There was NO WAY I was going to touch a live cricket. I talked my husband into doing the feeding, and was so relieved because I thought I might have a heart attack if I actually had to pick one up!


Well, she brought them over. I held Lizzie and tried to pet Sport. Then she brought in the container with 1oo crickets. I was fine as long as I didn't look at them. She left and we were making Lizzie and Sport comfortable with their new surroundings when my husband knocked the cricket container off the kitchen counter and yes of course the lid came off and well . . . there were 100 of the nasty little things hopping around and it took all 3 of us to catch them and put them in their box. I pointed at each one as it got away and my boys caught them and put them in their acrylic home. I didn't need to point out that even if one solitary critter got away, I wouldn't sleep all night and if I did, I would have nightmares.



Before leaving, my friend gave strict instructions which my husband and I listened to very carefully. My son was standing right there nodding and so I thought he understood how to take care of the feeding, holding, etc.



It was too quiet when I got up the next morning. My husband had left for work and Brenden wasn't in is room and I knew that he was home because it was Christmas break. I went downstairs and saw a sight that left me dumbfounded. My mouth was open but no words were coming out and then when they did, they were in tones that the neighbors could hear through closed doors and windows. Brenden had decided to feed the lizards. Lizzie, who had eaten 4 crickets the day before was not to have any for another day. Her instructions were to eat 3-4 every other day. There were about 8 of the horrid things hopping around in her glass home. In a decibel louder than I thought I could speak I ask him how many she had eaten for breakfast before I came in. He whispered, "four". I went into panic mode (same mode I used to go in when I was an EMT and had an amublance call and had to save someones life!) With my bare hands I got those crickets out of there in 2 seconds flat.



But . . . it gets worse. The little lizard, Sport could only have one a day 'cause he's still quite young. Don't even try to guess how many were in his cage and how many he had eaten. It was enough to put me in shock. My mind was going over how I was going to explain to my friend's little boy that his lizard had died and would my friend still want to be my friend!



After I calmed down a bit, I called and found out that lizards are not like fish. They do not eat too much and die (we'd had that happen already with Pal, the fish). I was assured that the lizards would be okay, but I kept that information from Brenden because I wanted to prolong the teaching "moment". I really wanted him to understand that there are consequences to our actions, and sometimes the consequences are big when it comes to caring for a living thing. I wanted him to "think about" it for a while.



After him asking me to go see if Lizzie and Sport were dead and asking me if Santa had ever left coal instead of presents for anyone in our family, I sat down with him and had a good talk. He was relieved and so was I for a very different reason.



I had not set out that day to have a "conquer my fears" experience but life always throws those curve balls and I ended up having one. We've had Lizzie and Sport for 13 days now. I feed them and clean out the cricket cage when it needs it. I didn't have a panic attack or a heart attack when I found a live cricket next to my bed the other night before crawling in. I calmly picked it up and put it back in it's box where it belongs. Of course it isn't only live crickets that I feared, but I don't want to even think about it if I had to pick up a live spider!