Do You Know What's in Your Backyard?

 

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Yesterday, Spencer found the mother of all caterpillars. I have never seen one that gigantic before- it was like The Very Hungry Caterpillar on steroids multiplied by 100.  We were outside and she was playing in the backyard when she squealed with delight that she'd found a caterpillar.  Before I could process that information, she picked it up and brought it over to me.  I was still baffled that she saw a caterpillar in the grass, recognized it for what it was, and quite clearly told me what she had found.  Her entire knowledge of them is solely from the aforementioned book, which doesn't exactly look like real live ones.

And then I see that she's holding this enormous looking thing that just couldn't be an actual caterpillar.  My inner insectaphobia, aka, entomophobia, was screaming for me to tell her to put it down, not to touch it, and never it up again. This is seriously what it looked like, only bigger!

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But she is such a little sponge and I don't want her to be afraid of of bugs, insects, spiders, and other things that creep.  I remembered reading this post on Dooce and I didn't want Spencer to soak in any of my irrational fears, etc.  So I kept my mouth shut.

Well, that lasted about 2.2 seconds because she tried to hand it to me and the voice in my head escaped through my mouth and said DO NOT PUT THAT ON ME!  I then calmly told her we needed to put it back in the grass so that we didn't hurt it.  (Good one, right?!)  And I tried to explain that you have to be very gentle with caterpillars because they are fragile and even if you don't mean to hurt them, it can still happen.  Shockingly, she put it back in the grass!  I bent down and got a closer look it.  I really thought that it might have been a toy shaped like a caterpillar, because it was that big.  It wasn't until I watched it start to move it's antennae and scoot away that I was finally convinced of it's authenticity. 

Spencer has always been a little mimic of me, but recently it's taken on a new life of it's own.  I have to watch every teeny tiny thing that I do and say because chances are that she will do and say the same thing.  And I want her to be her own person.  My parents never even told me who they were voting for until I was in high school because they wanted me to form my own opinions and not be swayed theirs.  I found that infuriating, but now I'm starting to get it.  It's hard to be a good influence without stifling them. Here is my question: where do you draw the line between being a positive role model and being domineering?