Chicken Gizzards

Gizzards:

The gizzard is an organ in the digestive tract found in birds, reptiles, earthworms, some fish, and other creatures. This specialized stomach constructed of thick, muscular walls is used for grinding up food. -Wikipedia

Recently in the Life of Lily:

Someone asked me the other day if Lily ever felt pain from her run-ins with things (like when she runs head first into walls and trees and such). Before I could answer, my friend went on to ask if maybe she had one of those nerve-sensory issues where you don't feel pain (ie. Congenital insensitivity to pain). 

"No, she doesn't have that," I said. (If she did, she would have lost a couple limbs months ago I'm sure.)

But, that same day, I had to laugh because after her bath while traveling through the house as naked-girl, hooded bath towel trailing behind her, she tried running under the dining room table, as upright as she gets and THUNK! She hit the table head on, leaving a rather significant indention on the bridge of her nose and up her forehead. (Note to Child Services: that is not the reason I laughed.)

I actually gasped (a big mommy no-no in the case of accidents and injuries) and of course she came up crying. I thought to myself, "See, she feels pain." And then, in the most pathetic voice, she said, "My towel fell off, Mama!" and handed it to me, turning around so I could put it back on, after which, she kept on going, happy as a clam. So much for feeling pain.

So, I was cleaning up the dining room floor yesterday (since I never got a chance to vacuum the day before after Lily puked up the entire contents of her gizzards underneath my chair as I was breastfeeding Liam, and my friend, who just moved here from MN, was sitting on the other side of the table, feeding her baby...good times, no stress....I am guessing my friend thought I was a little odd since my reaction was to calmly sit there, continuing to feed the baby while watching Lily as she hurled not once, not twice but three times underneath me. I sat analyzing the contents in awe and wonder before finally getting up to plop Liam in his crib so I could address the situation hands free. She wasn't actually sick of course. She had just eaten too much junk and topped it off with too much juice, neither of which we usually have in the house.) Oh, sorry, I got sidetracked. So, I was vacuuming when Madeline started banging on the sliding glass door:

"Mom! Lily has a Black Widow Spider! Lily has a BLACK WIDOW SPIDER," she yelled, loud enough to remind the entire neighborhood that we are the reason the average age of resident dropped to 50 last year.

"It's big and black and has red on its belly!" Aidan added. (You know, in case I didn't happen to notice those characteristics in the last TWO DOZEN!)

I ran outside and found Lily holding a red light saber and sure enough, hanging off the end was a long, dirty web WITH A BLACK WIDOW DANGLING FROM IT!

FOR CRYIN' OUT LOUD!

Really, who needs fiction when life has so much to offer?

On closer inspection, the spider was dead. Phew... Now, I don't know if she killed it herself (very possible) or if it was already dead (perhaps the exterminator really does work?) or if it was just playing dead (a less well known but extremely significant survival trick of spiders) but I very carefully carried the spider wielding weapon inside and plunged it into the watery abyss of the toilet where the spider was flushed away (again and again....and again, just to be certain). 

And Lily watched on, waiting to get her light saber back and seemed a little put off by the fact that she had just lost her pet spider. (She must have been saving it to replenish her gizzards.)