The Snake

I am beyond terrified of snakes, it is the only fear that trumps my fear of heights.  But as a parent I am confronted daily with attempting to make my children better people than I am.  With that being said I feel as though my fear is one of my greatest weaknesses, so yesterday when we were "hiking" which is just walking the property and I saw something move in front of me - I knew I had several choices to make.  Obviously I wanted to take off the other way and shutter in fear and disgust, but I was holding on to Tyler's hand because she refuses to wear her shoes on the correct feet so she trips even more than my already clumsy kids do.  So if I jumped and moved in the other direction especially quickly I would have to explain why.  Instead I took the high road, swallowed the vomit in my mouth and called Austin over to see what I had found, held onto both of their hands and walked slowly behind God's abomination following it around the yard.  Then we simply HAD to look it up online and see what kind it was, once we found Garter Snakes we had to find the right color.  Then we had to look up the poisonous ones so we could see how different they look.  I spent 20 minutes at the computer trying not to brush my legs frantically thinking that the snake had followed us in the house.  Needless to say I didn't sleep well last night.