Snakes on a Patio

Gabi woke up in the middle of the night last night and she was covered in puke from head to toe. I don't know what happened but I guess exhaustion had taken over me, because it overpowered that motherly instinct. I didn't notice she had vomited at all, I had heard her coughing through the baby monitor but thought it was normal coughing. My husband who I normally consider to be paranoid beyond words and a hue pessimist said something's wrong and went into her room to find her covered in puke. It was nasty - we had to give her a bath at midnight because she was literally covered in the stuff, we had to take everything out of her crib which included all her favorite plush toys, blankies, etc. Yes, judgemental parents, that stuff you're not supposed to have in her crib to avoid SIDS. She loves to sleep in it and she's over 16 months old so that's it. Anyway, it was pretty disturbing for me to think that had my husband's 6th sense not kicked in she would've woken up a whole 7 hours later with vomit caked onto her skin, her hair, her PJ's, etc. or that even worse she could've choked. Does this happen to other parents? It's totally nerve wracking, now I think she'll sleep in my bed every day from now on...I know that's a bit drastic but I'm suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.

By now you're probably wondering what my puking daughter has to do with the picture above and my bad spoof on the "Snakes on a Plane" move title. Well here it is, I decided it was really best if I not take her to day care and stay with her at home, which is always a very challenging affair. Trying to get work done while your 1.5 year old baby tries to have you play with him/her the whole time is a true test of a mom's multi-tasking ability. When we had 2 snow days back in February I thought I was going to go crazy. Today was equally challenging -- although thankfully because the weather is so much nicer now and I got Gabi spring toys at Target, it was a little bit more entertaining for her at least, cause she was able to spend a lot of time outside and usually for such a young child the problem during snow days is that the kids get cabin fever and they really can't go out too much when it's so damn cold.

So I got her this Elmo sprinkler that you tie to the hose and that's her favorite, by the time she got really comfortable with it she was trying to drink from the sprinkler even though the water was still too cold! She would also hold it up and start spraying everywhere, she almost looked like a boy trying to pee. It was hilarious...I also got her an automatic bubble blower and you can hear her going "bubba! bubba!" when she wants more bubbles, and then I got her a little chair so that she could sit with us in the yard because she likes to feel like a grown up. And finally, I got a bird feeder which so far has provided lots of entertainment, not only for Gabi, but I think it'll also help with Borges and the older brother syndrome. But the squirrels seem to be the ones enjoying the bird feeder the most, as they come to eat the bird food far more frequently than the birds.

Anyway, have you noticed yet that Target is my favorite store in the world??? Just wanted to point that out in case you hadn't. I only have two complains about Target: one is that every time I go there it doesn't matter whether I'm quickly running in there to get some batteries or something, I always end up spending at least $75. Great for them, not for me. Especially when I was on maternity leave and all I did every day when I wanted to get out of the house was go to Kroger or Target. The second complaint is that their web site doesn't have the same stuff as the store does and vice-versa. This is really annoying. I digress again...back to Gabi and the yard.

Even though she was feeling a little cranky after a bad night, she was still up for fun and games outside in that warm weather. One of the times when we were outside I saw a little snake on its own not really moving or anything. I wondered if it was actually alive, which I realized it was after I came back a few minutes later and it wasn't there. I took a picture of that one lonesome little harmless-looking snake here...

The next thing I know, when Gabi wants to go outside again to play with the Elmo sprinkler I see the mass of snakes that you see in the picture at the top of the blog. There were like 5 or 6 snakes all intertwined sort of slithering their way all over our yard. First they were in that ottoman, then they somehow all moved in that intertwined mass to the next ottoman over, and I guess next they all decided they were going back to where they came from because in same scary disgusting mess of snake bodies they went back up the hill. The whole thing probably lasted 45 min to 1 hr. I wonder what they were doing, were they mating? Was there a nest and they were just all born now and therefore there's a potential for them to get big and be back??? I can't even bear the thought...I can still feel the creepy crawlies everywhere I'm having a hard time not imagining them crawling up my leg or something like that, ugh. Anyhoo, coming from Puerto Rico and not knowing what the hell to do about this, does anyone want to tell me what to do to get rid of them? I asked a co-worker of mine this morning and she said..."It depends on how badly you want to get rid of them". I guess I really don't want to get rid of them that badly, but I don't want them doing their thing where the humans like to hang out! If they can stay in their space I can play nice and stay in my space too and we can all happily co-exist. Can't we all just get along?

P.S. When I picked up Gabi at day care this afternoon I found out other kids have started getting sick, which I guess means Gabi was Patient Zero! Parents or Patient Zero live in guilt-ridden agony until all kids are well. So I guess the fact that I kept her out of day care for a whole day didn't do anything to not get the other kids sick, it was too late. And the next night after Gabi got sick it was my husband who puked like 4 times...which I guess means "I got next". :(