I blame myself.

I have gone most of my life avoiding spiders, leaving the room when I see one, and pretending they don't exist in general. When I married Scott, he became President of bug, critter and spider removal, and I happily relinquished all that unpleasantness to him. Then I had Lucy, and decided I needed to woman-up, and get rid of the things before they got to her. So I started killing spiders, and Lucy started observing. I think it wasn't a pretty sight, as I chased them through our house, fumbling to flush spiders down the toilet and jumping around as I tried to brush various crawley things out of corners and off walls. I'm sad to say many a spider died a messy death, due to my incompetence.

Apparently all this has made an impression on Lucy. Scott found her outside the other day, stamping repeatedly on her favorite night-time blanket, with all the concentration and fury her two-year-old self could muster.

When asked what she was doing, Lucy simply said, "Daddy, I kill the spider."

To Scott's surprise, when he lifted that blanket up, there actually was a poor, obliterated spider, smooshed underneath.

I'm not sure how I feel about this, other than I find it fairly hilarious, and I pity the spider that comes within Lucy's unmerciful eye.