that freaked me out...

I don't know what the deal is, but it seems like every 3 or 4 months,
we find one of these little creeps somewhere in our house...

Today I found this one just strolling along our bathroom floor.
I made Ruby stand by him (but not too close) to make sure he didn't get away from us, while I ran and grabbed my camera.

I had never in my life seen one this small.

I snagged a little prop for the photo shoot - a dime - just to demonstrate how miniscule he really was.

I mean, it literally would have taken 10 of these little ant-sized scorps to cover that one dime.

(Quite the contrast from the time we found a scorpion in our kitchen, so huge, it would have required roughly 10 dimes to cover just him.

Luckily, John killed that one, I would have never been brave enough to do that.)

Our poor little bathroom friend hadn't a clue of his unfortunate fate.

Immediately following his 30 seconds of fame and paparazzi,

He was mercilessly crushed beneath my shoe.

I was so freaked out while I was taking his picture, I had all these images of him leaping atop my lens and then stinging my eye. I know. Pretty funny.

But I do feel like some of my fears were justifiable, though.

First of all, those baby scorpions are known to release more venom in their sting than the full-grown ones do.

Secondly, their size enables them to hide in obscure places, thus making them harder to pinpoint.

(That six foot long scorpion, hanging out in our kitchen, was not too difficult to identify.)

Because he was so small, I keep imagining finding more, like in my or my kids' shoe, or nestled into the carpet fibers where we wrestle and play on the floor...

or in one of our beds.

Oh that would make me so mad to find one in our beds.

And, finally, something that has haunted me all day...

If we found a baby...

doesn't that mean there could be more babies?

and a momma somewhere?

Those female scorpions are known to give birth to somewhere around 100 baby scorpions.

Gross. Gross. Gross.

Ahhhhh, I am so freaked out right now.

I tried to remain calm.

I really did... for Ruby's sake

My fear must have evidenced in my behavior, though,

because all day long Ruby has repeated over and over,

Mom, that really freaked me out.

That scorpion really, really freaked me out.

It's a good thing Asher was napping through the whole ordeal,

He most likely would have picked it up with his fingers,

and popped it in his mouth.