My 2 year old Poked a Rattlesnake

What can I say? My 2 year old daughter poked a rattlesnake and it could have been really, really bad. Where we live, we are surrounded by canyons with warm rocks heated by the strong sun where snakes love to reside.

We spend a lot of time outdoors, exploring everything which includes touching so many wonders from Nature like leaves, sticks, shells, plants, trees and of course her favorite: rocks. She loves rocks so much - big ones, small ones, rocks of all colors and textures - with her favorite fun places being any area where there’s tons of them to play with. We've made a fun tradition already of collecting rocks at the beach and during our canyon hikes, taking them home, painting them and leaving them in the woods as gifts for strangers. It's a sweet gesture us canyon dwellers do for each other, mainly because of the kids since their reaction to finding these homemade treasures is truly priceless.

Of course there are times when I've had to be careful; lifting rocks from the earth means critters can suddenly spring up which can scare the little ones, or even worse they can get bitten. I try to practice safety with my daughter but there are times when lessons, unfortunately, are learned after an encounter with danger. And so it happened - that fateful day when my baby girl could have landed in the hospital because of her curiosity and my lack of situational awareness, to say the least.

We were playing in the large back parking lot of a closed church where there are lots of natural areas surrounding it. We found a mound of huge, fantastic rocks just waiting to be grabbed for play. My daughter looked towards the rocks, walked a few steps closer, squatted and leaned in. Then she took her itty bitty index finger and poked a little clump of leaves nestled between the rocks. She quickly began to fuss and almost cry, not liking what she had touched at all. I approached the leaves and poked, too, and -oh my stars- I felt it ! I remembered what snakes feel like: soft and squishy and a little scaly; it was a baby rattlesnake! And instead of gasping or jumping backwards, I must have turned into a baby, too, for a second and go in for a second poke. It wasn't moving so I thought it was dead but after I nudged it again, it slowly uncoiled itself, raising its tiny head and stuck out its sharp, black pitchfork tongue. It looked straight at us, totally unafraid as if it was saying 'hello.' Suddenly my mother instinct returned as I snatched my daughter and bolted, knowing that Mama Snake wasn't too far away. Holy Moly, that was a close one! I had read only recently about a 3 year old in Texas dying from a rattlesnake bite as the poor baby was climbing the steps of a slide. If anything had happened to my baby, I would never forgive myself. I put my little girl in the stroller, and started shaking, realizing how foolish I had just been.

The thing is, being a Mom is scary and gives me crazy anxiety. This doesn't mean I don't love being a mother and am not having the time of my life raising my daughter but I'm afraid, always afraid. Is she going to choke? Is she going to suffocate in her sleep? Will she drown in the pool? Will we get into a car accident? When I'm taking her for a walk, will a car suddenly hop the curb and strike us dead? Will there be an accident when she's in the care of another loved one? Will she eat the wrong thing and suddenly get a fatal allergy? Will a coyote or mountain lion or rabid dog suddenly pounce on her during one of our canyon hikes? Will she fall down the stairs, or on a hard surface or in the bathtub? Will she get hurt when she's running that fast? Will she get kidnapped? The fear is all-consuming a lot of the times and yes, I have wept in bed at night, freaking out that something horrible might happen to her.

My baby girl is now two and a half years old and guess what? Our kids are here to stay so I better adjust my nerves or I'll miss the magic. You see, I'm a wild-hearted Mommy, the kind who lets my daughter roll in the dirt, run barefoot in the grass and play with bugs, who lets her climb trees and jump off of ledges into my arms. She's so brave and fun and a lot of times, it's her dragging me up a hill when I get tired on our walks. My daughter is a free spirit so really, I just have to let her be. Like my own mother - who is a retired elementary school teacher having raised three daughters, nine nieces and nephews and now three grandkids - I have to accept that bad stuff will happen in parenting, that accidents will happen, our babies get sick, they get hurt and sure, maybe we could have prevented some of those instances but it's all about giving it all we've got without beating ourselves up.

"You're doing a great job, honey, you're a wonderful mother, " my Mom reassures me. I really don't know how she did it with all those children around her at once, and how she is still doing it in her sixth decade of life. None of the kids died - in fact, they all grew up to be super adults who always celebrate her and thank her for being so amazing. Her former students used to come back and visit her over the years, thanking her for being the kindest and best teacher they have ever had. My mother wears an amethyst necklace a kindergartener gave to her as a gift years ago. She views her lifetime of caring for children as an honor and a gift. Her tender ways, the way she plays with her grandkids, running with them in her yard every day, her breathtaking gestures of love towards all the children, the way she remembers what each of them like and dislike. Sure, she gets frightened sometimes - of snakes especially - but I finally solved the mystery of how she did not lose her mind worrying while raising all those kids. She lived moment by moment and stayed in the now. When I watch my mother and how she lives, it's always purposeful, dutiful and excellent. When she's having fun with the kids, it's all heart and silliness and marvelous. And when she has to get to work taking care of them - the cooking, the changing of clothes, the bathing, the reading, the singing, the walking, that too is done meticulously with every second carefully administered by her own spirit. She's never on auto-pilot or too lost in worry that she cannot enjoy the moment. That is where the power is - the present - and as the saying goes ‘the past is gone, the future isn't here yet but the here and now - well, that's a gift and that's why it's called THE PRESENT.