Teaching your toddler not to be afraid of things

I am not a huge fan of spiders or bugs... especially in the house.  But when I see one while the kids are around, I try to remember how much they learn from my example.  I don't want them to be afraid of bugs because I screamed when one caught me by surprise, or take a cavalier attitude towards other living things because they saw me kill one.  So we talk about how bugs live outside, and how neat they are, and count the spider legs once I've caught them in a glass to take outside.  And if we see a bee outside, we talk about how they don't like to be touched so we need to stand back, but also that it's wonderful how they help our flowers grow.

Who ever would have thought I'd be pretending to like spiders.

The things we do for our kids, right?!

I love how this bee is helping our flowers grow.  (I actually really do love bumble bees.)