Yesterday, as Molly was getting ready to go to the backyard, she stopped at the door to our screened in porch.
“Uh….Mom.”
“Yes?” I answered, while doing dishes.
“What’s that slithering thing on the porch?”
Let me tell you that while my next step was to casually say, “I’ll be there in a second,” as I dried off my hands, in my head, it was more like this, “ONLY ONE THING I KNOW SLITHERS!” This was followed in my head by, “There is no way there is a snake in my porch. There just isn’t. It’s not a snake, and there is no reason to get worked up.”
“Ummm….Mom,” Molly continued, “Do you think you can come here quicker?”
“Okay, I’m on my way,” I mused in my best June Cleaver-esque voice. Again, though, in my head, I was saying something along the lines of, “Holy snot! There’s going to be a snake in my porch, isn’t there? No. There isn’t going to be a snake. C’mon — a snake?”
Now, this is where I must preempt to say that I realize some of you reading probably see snakes often where you live. I do not live in that kind of place. In fact, I have only ever seen snakes in zoos and as a couple of people’s pets. I have never seen a snake just out in the world doing it’s slithery snake business.
Well, you know, until I got to the porch door, that is.
Molly looked up at me. Instead of screaming like I expected I might, I was just amazed. “It’s a snake,” I said, confirming what I knew she had already known.
We watched as it slithered on by. Then, when it was farther away, we went onto the porch, and watched it slithering and looking all around, until it found somewhere to escape. Though, in all honesty, this may mean that he found himself trapped inside the walls of my porch. But, I’m fairly confident that he would find a spot to get back out into the world.
We then had to gleefully call Eric to tell him of our new “almost pet,” before telling him all about our snake adventure. In fact, we had to tell everyone we saw for about 24 hours.
Not only was the whole experience kind of interesting, but I love now that instead of us all freaking out (like I would have expected), we used it as a cool learning experience instead.
Join 25,000+ Other Awesome People
Subscribe to the Real Life at Home weekly newsletter to get our latest content, exclusive free printables, learning activities, and ideas for celebrating with your kids all year
I was outside with my son, innocently looking at fall colors and leaves. I took a step and stepped on a snake (similar to the one pictured), I grabbed Peter and jumped up and onto our picnic table. We watched it slither away from the safe distance.
I like snakes: just not touching, stepping, or hearing them.
I would have screamed like a crazy woman. Heck — I kind of wanted to scream just reading your snake incident. LOL That’s why I’m still amazed I kept my cool the day we saw the one on our porch.
EEK! Too close for comfort. We get those snakes here too though. In fact, I can’t cut the grass anymore, because I accidentally beheaded one. I was cutting the grass and went over a pile of leaves. Then I saw a something bloody and saw the snake body with no head!! I still feel bad about it. I had no idea he was in there.
We once had a baby copperhead in our garage. Luckily a neighbor man was walking by and nicely “took care of it” for us. Abby was about 2 and I was freaking out!