The uninvited guest

For the past two weeks or so Olive and I have been either away on vacation or out cavorting all over town. I decided some long overdue, one-on-one time between the two of us was needed. I had the perfect plan: after her nap, we would throw on our grubbies, grab our gardening tools and spend the afternoon in our backyard digging, planting and watering. We would have a ball and I could actually get some work done. With the light-bulb of ingenious ideas still glowing above my head, I scurried into the garage, quickly devised a mental checklist for our outdoor adventure and gathered the supplies:

* our gardening gloves...... CHECK!
* my small shovel.............. CHECK!
* Olive's Hello Kitty tools... CHECK!
* empty pots..................... CHECK!
* dried out potting soil...... CHECK!
* the hose covered in sparrow poop...CHECK!

We were in business!
I laid everything out on the grass in an organized fashion and anxiously awaited the end of her nap. She soon awoke refreshed and recharged. In an overly enthusiastic tone, I unveiled the plan to her.
She loved it!
We got dressed, filled our Shamu souvenir cups to the rim with ice water, buried a paper plate with goldfish crackers, apple slices and string cheese and headed out the backdoor, into the yard.
We plopped ourselves down at our makeshift workstation and began the fun. About 30 seconds later, I realized I had forgotten the best part... I hadn't turned on the hose!
I excitedly shot up, walked across the yard, and carefully turned on the hose to a slight drip (knowing it would be on for at least an hour). While I adjusted it to the right setting, I heard Olive say, "Uh-oh! I looked up from where I was and didn't see anything worthy of an "Uh-oh!". She was standing still at a careful distance directly in front of a medium sized clay pot. However, I did notice that she had ditched her coveted pink Hello Kitty shovel.

Something was up.

With my eyes on her, I casually walked back to our work space and noticed her eyes were fixated on that pot. I changed my gaze in the same direction as hers and was HORRIFIED by what MY eyes were now focused on.....



NO FREAKIN WAY!!!

HOW did this happen????
WHEN did this happen????
WHY did this happen????

This was seriously one of the biggest bugs I have ever seen in my 31 years of bug encounters.

Although my gut reaction was to scream, I knew I needed to stay calm for my little gal. I didn't want to this nasty run-in permanently imprinted in her brain (as it would be in mine). I forced out a shaky "o-o-o-h!", trying to make it sound more like I was impressed rather than repulsed.
It worked.
She looked at me, smiled, and replied, "big bug, mommy. Nice?"
(Pause for 3 seconds)
"Yes, it's nice........ do you want to go inside and have some ice cream?"

The rest is history.

I don't know what happened to the bug, but I do know that all of our tools and supplies are still outside, six hours after the fact, being watered by our sprinklers.