Braydon and the Rattlesnake

Braydon spent the day with me while Breck and Jaime had a special day together. This morning we went out to water my flowers. Braydon took out the super soaker water gun and watered the flowers his way, while I watered them the traditional way. As I watered my flowers in the front by our steps, I noticed a hole in the ground that hadn't been there before. I showed Braydon, and asked him what he thought might be in the hole. I suggested that he squirt water in the hole and see if anything comes out. I went on with my watering, and the next thing I know is Braydon running to me yelling to me that he saw something. He thought it was probably a rattlesnake. I asked him to describe what he saw. "It was green, and had TWO sharp teeth. It wanted to bite me, and it looked angry! " He sure noticed a lot for the second he looked before he took off running! I assured him that it wasn't a rattlesnake, but he was positive it WAS A SNAKE! I told him that if it was a snake, it was probably a garter snake. I also said that I didn't think snakes had teeth. He suggested that we search the web and find out about garter snakes to see if they have teeth and bite people. We wanted to find a picture to verify his claims. We did learn that garter snakes have teeth, but they don't bite people (actually, they can if they are provoked, but I didn't want him to know that - he was already freaked out enough!) We learned lots of other things about garter snakes, but unfortunately, our computer was very sloooow and no pictures came up. Braydon also let me know that his computer at home is much faster than ours. Anyway, he just knew that what he saw was in fact an angry snake!

For the rest of day, he just wouldn't let go of the worry. He even made sure that our front door was locked so it wouldn't come in. When we left to go to lunch with Grandpa he made sure we left through the garage, but he still ran as fast as he could to get in the van. When we came home he really didn't want to get out of the van for fear that the angry snake had gotten in our garage. I assured him that snakes don't like concrete and wouldn't get in the garage. After running to the door, he turned to me and breathed a big sigh of relief that he had escaped the angry snake again. But then he begin to worry about Mommy and Breck coming to pick him up and encountering the snake. He wanted me to call them and warn them and tell them to run to the door. I didn't, and that made him more concerned. When they did come, he was so relieved when they made it safely inside. He also described for Jaime, how angry the snake was, and warned her to be careful going to the car. When he left today, he jumped off the porch and ran through the yard to avoid the hole with the angry snake.

Throughout the day, I assured him that Grandpa would take care of it when he came home. Then he needed to know what "taking care of it" meant. He really didn't want Grandpa to kill it, but he sure didn't want it to live here. Such worry for a little boy!

After Mike came home, I took him out to the "snake's home." He grabbed a shovel ready to be the dragonslayer. I went back inside because I don't like snakes either, and I really didn't want to know what Mike was going to do with it. Soon he was calling me outside to see the "angry snake." There beside my flowers was a baby toad! I had to call Braydon and tell him what was in the hole. When he found out it was a baby toad, he wanted to have us keep it as a pet! He was somewhat disappointed when I told him that the toad had already disappeared. From an angry rattlesnake to a cute little baby toad - it was certainly an emotional rollercoaster ride day for Braydon! (From the picture you can see how little the toad is!)