Snakes and snails and puppy dog tails...

Yesterday I had my first "mother of a little boy" moment. We were playing outside since it was our first really warm day, actually it was almost hot as it was in the 80's. My son had been picking up sticks and taking them to the burn pile, or as he says "helping daddy with fire".  He sees my husband taking trees and large branches to the burn pile and wants to help by collecting twigs and occasionally a branch that is a couple feet long. I was on the patio with my daughter and Wythe had wandered down the walkway.  I saw him bend over and pick up a stick, something caused me to take a second look at that stick and I thought "that doesn't look like a stick maybe it is something Peter left out" then the stick started moving. My heart skipped a beat at that point and I hurried over to Wythe, sure enough he was holding a 4 foot+ black snake! I didn't want to over react and so I calmly told him to put it down, fortunately he listened. I didn't want to say something like "snakes are yucky" or "NO don't pick up a snake" so instead I opted for the "snakes are our friends and we must treat them with respect which means just say hi to Mr. Snake but don't pick him up because he is probably just out trying to find something to eat or trying to get some sun or even on his way home and he probably doesn't like to be held by little boys"...that story. I think at that point Wythe still thought he had been holding a stick because he was looking at me with that look toddlers have that says "you keep talking and talking and I have no idea what you are saying". Then as the snake slithered away he said "where stick go?"  So much for my explanation about snakes.  I did wash his hands and we talked some more about the snake, I think he started to understand because he wanted to go back to that area to see "hiss...hiss....snake". 
Afterwards I had to pat myself on the back for remaining calm and not panicking to see my two year old holding a snake. But to be perfectly honest if I had seen him holding a large spider...well, all bets would be off.  The chances are I would have gone inside, locked the door (leaving him outside) and called for help.

'til next time...