Collette and The {Real} Nake

So, for months now, Collette has been in love with snakes (or "nakes" as she tends to call them).

Well.

Last week, LL was mowing the lawn, and he found a snake.  The next thing I know, he's hollering to me to bring a jar.  When I walked outside to ask why he needed a jar, I found my dear husband, holding a stick with a small black snake on it, and my sweet 2 year old daugther, bouncing with joy-- "I have a nake! I have a baby nake!" As much as I didn't want to have that snake anywhere near my house, how could I say no? So I got a recently-washed mayo jar, LL drilled some holes in it, and we let Collette hold her new baby nake.

To say she was excited would be an understatement:

When we asked her what she was going to name her nake, she said, without any hesitation "Susquehanna!" (Which is the name of a river around here, in case you didn't know).  I did put my foot down and say that Susquehanna in her jar could not live in the house overnight, but she did have a nice spot on our covered porch. :)

On Sunday, (after many trips out to the porch to visit Susquehanna), Collette wanted to take Susquehanna down to the farm to show Gram and Pap.  Sinfce it was nice weather, we decided to walk and take the wagon.  Collette was in heaven giving Susquehanna her first wagon, and kept up a dialogue with her the entire way there: "See, baby nake? See the water? Look at the birds, baby nake!  Oh, there's the sun! Look!" all the while holding up her snake-in-a-mayo-jar to see everything. LL and I were cracking up the entire walk!

Monday, we decided it was time to say bye-bye to Susquehanna.  Surprisingly, Collette wasn't too upset to see her go.  She was actually pretty excited to watch her slither away.

Ready to free Susquehanna:

The last pictures of Susquehanna before she (?) returned to the wild:

Luckily, Collette wasn't snake-less for long.  My sweet friend Nancy got her a her a new, plastic, baby nake of her own. :) Collette named it Susquehanna.  Of course. :)