This story began about a week and a half ago when Braden and Ringo found a snake, one and a half to two feet long, in our neighbor's yard and they captured it in Braden's butterfly net. There was quite the excitement in the neighborhood as Ringo was trying to get it to go into it's new "home." We didn't know what kind of snake it was and Ringo didn't think it was poisonous, but they took it to a pet store and had them look at it. They confirmed that it was a corn snake and that it was indeed not poisonous and would make a good "pet."
I'm not particularly fond of snakes, not even so much because I'm afraid of them, but because I think they're disgusting. But because Braden is always wanting a pet and he was so excited about (and it was in a cage in the garage), I didn't say much. Then we went on vacation and our friends the Rivera family kept the snake for about a week (they also have a pet corn snake, only it's a real pet that came from a pet store). We got the snake back a few days ago...yippee! Below is a picture of the snake right after it became part of our family...
So the real drama began this afternoon. I was in the house with Evan and Braden and Bella were outside playing. I have tried to find out how this all came about, but so far we've gotten two completely different stories. I heard Bella screaming, and just assuming that she didn't like something Braden was doing, I headed to the back door (with a loud sigh) to see what the problem was. As I was on my way, I heard LOUD banging on the door and could hear Bella screaming something...that's when I first realized there was an actual problem.
I opened the door and Bella was standing there holding her arm straight out with the snake's teeth attached to it. The snake was just dangling from her arm. I honestly don't think I have ever been so panicked. I didn't want to touch the snake, but the snake had a hold of my daughter. I just kept thinking how am I going to get that snake off her arm without touching it. It seemed like it took a couple of minutes before I kicked into gear.
I first told Braden to go get Chelle across the street. If you're ever in a crisis she is THE person to have around! While he was doing that I grabbed my cleaning gloves from under the kitchen sink and got hold of the snake around its head, but it would NOT let go. After just a few seconds, Chelle showed up (thank God). She put her hand over mine and we both squeezed the snake's jaw area, but it still wouldn't let go. Then we lifted up and out and finally got it off. Then we ran (I think we were both freaked out by having a snake in our hands) the snake to the edge of our backyard and tossed it. As I went to tend to Bella's wound, Chelle went looking for the rake...by the time she got back there, it was gone. Hopefully it was as traumatized as we were and will never come back our way again!
I still have the creepy-crawlies, the heebie-jeebies, and I'll probably have bad dreams tonight. I'm so grossed out I could hardly eat my dinner. And I'm not even the one who was bitten!!! That Bella, she's such a trooper. She was crying and screaming before I arrived on the scene, but she was pretty calm after that. She was much more calm than I would have been in her position! After all the excitement died down, she said she was going to write Pastor a note and tell him about it. I thought that was pretty funny. Kids really are resilient.
Obviously I was not calm and collected or I would have grabbed my camera and taken a picture of the snake hanging from Bella's arm. She probably wouldn't have appreciated that though. ;o) Now that I've gotten the story out, I'm going to try not to think about it anymore!!! :=)
