Princesses and Snake Charmers

Last night we were all outside. Emma, Drew and I had just returned from the hardware store, and Marty was playing with the twins. They had been using watering cans, so the twins were sans-clothing, but that's the joys of summer.

Marty and I were having a deep conversation about rust remover when we heard a scream. Not the scream of a child who is hurt/injured/dying, but the scream of a five year old drama-queen.

"A snake! A SNAKE!!!"

So we wandered over to see. And to stop the drama-queen before the neighbors, who do not know the subtleties of little-girl screams, could call the police.

What is a Mom to do when her kids find a snake? Why, channel her childhood snake-charming days, of course, and play with it.

And no, I did NOT photo-shop the spit-up out of my shirt. Sheesh.

I held it until Marty came back with a bin and the camera, then we let the snake wander the bin a while.

The kids Emma decided to name her Princess. No, I do not know if she was really of the female persuasion, snakes are awfully hard to determine, and it really didn't matter. We had a little fun learning about garter snakes.

Finally, it was time to let poor, freaked out Princess back into the wild to go home to her family. You can see by the look on Emma's face that she was not thrilled about this idea.
"But I will miss her!" "Yes, but she needs to go home. What would you do if you were playing with her and she took you back to her house and would not let you go home to your family? You would be very sad, and scared, and you would miss us. So we are letting her go home, and maybe she will come back to play another time."

That kind of worked.

And where was Drew this whole time? He had fallen asleep on the way home from the Hardware store, and was sleeping soundly in the front yard.
Don't worry, buddy, next year you will be big enough to play with snakes.