Rosie the Charlantula

I am working on Halloween pictures, I swear. But this story is too cute not to tell and I think even without pictures you'll appreciate it.

For Halloween I conned Kylie on coming out with Lulu and me while we walked the neighborhood. Kylie was Wednesday 13 (A band? A singer? I dunno for sure.) but I just called her Brett Michaels. Lead singer of an 80's band called Poison. She was not amused. Lulu was Wall-E which was perfect because it went over her jacket and snow hat perfectly and she was toasty the whole time.

As we are rounding part of the neighborhood Kylie advises us that "There is the spider house". Apparently Kylie remembered a few years ago going to the door and then asking her if she wanted to hold their pet spider. A tarantula. She declined. Probably not politely.

Let's take a moment to remember who we are with at this moment. My Goth child who is wearing eyeliner thicker than my pinky and total black with a cowboy hat and mesh shirt. Also in tow is my 5 year old dressed up like a Robot.

We get to the house and the lady who is at the door asks if Lulu wants to see her ring. And yes, it's a brown tarantula. And I died. Okay not really. Lulu is fascinated and stares at it through her goggles. The lady asks if she would like to hold it.

Now let's stop here for a moment. I'm pretty sure she expected the answer to be no. Because was 5 year old girl in her right mind would say yes to holding this hairy giant spider?

My kid, that's who. She asks me to take off her glove and holds out her hand for Rosie to step on to. The lady explains that Rosie has suckers on her feet and is furry but wont bite. Lulu has no reaction as Rosie steps onto her hand and just HANGS OUT. Kylie is dying behind me and I'm squatting in my witches costume wondering where MY child is and who I have under this costume of the robot.

Then Rosie makes what could have been a fatal move. She steps onto the sleeve of Lulu's coat and suddenly Lulu FREAKS OUT. She starts screaming and waving her hand and luckily I was already squatting so I grabbed her hand in and in a brief second told myself that I could take the giant hairy TARANTULA if I had to.

Blessedly the lady was also squatting and we had Lulu's hand still while Rosie was still attached and she was able to get the spider off the coat and child with no issues. We checked Rosie out before leaving and she was fine. Lulu also was fine and was later able to explain she didn't want the spider in her hair. I totally get that.

So to recap. Toasty warm Kindergartner holds Rosie the Charlantula (Lulu's pronunciation, not mine) while Goth big sister and Mom barely keep from peeing themselves at the sight of it.

Happy Halloween to us.