There is a snake in the yard!

As we were leaving hip hop class tonight, Christopher yelled "snake, there is a snake coming!" and darted towards the car.  For some reason it brought back an extremely funny memory about Krista.  I haven't told this story in awhile, so some details may be sketchy, but I definitely remember the most important parts.

I was in the family room one day while the children were playing on the porch.  Suddenly, I hear Krista's scream of terror.  This was not a normal scream, she sounded horrified.  All sorts of things ran through my head in the seconds after the scream.  Then she yells, "There is a snake on the porch! A snake!"  Anyone that knows me knows how I feel about snakes, so I scream at the kids to get in the house.  Alex and Chris just stand there and look at us and I cannot figure out why they are so calm.  Krista and I hop on the back of the couch (yes we were standing on the back of the couch hugging each other) as I yell at Alex and Chris to move.  Krista is hysterical, and I am not helping things,  and I'll be damned if Alex and Chris will not move.  So I get down and ask if they see anything and Alex just shrugs his shoulders.  At that moment I realize that the sprinklers are on.  I turn to Krista and asked her if she saw the snake and she cries "no, I heard it go ssss, ssss,ssssssssssss. 

At that point Alex says, "I just thought it was the sprinkler."

I lost it.  Alex, Chris, and I laughed so hard we cried, realizing that the sound she heard was the sprinkler coming on.  Krista was not amused and yelled at us to stop laughing.  Alex told her it was just the sprinkler, but she was not willing to believe him and got very angry when we would not stop laughing.  She then runs up to me while I am standing in front of Alex and punches me in the butt, then she kicked Alex between his legs.  Fortunately she was too far back and barely got him.  He laughed and said "she's really mad!"  which made us laugh harder, and made her even angrier. 

Obviously I had to punish her so I start walking her upstairs as she screams and cries "there is a snake there is a snake MOMMY!"  I am trying my best to give her the stern mommy face but tears are running down my face and I cannot hide my smile as I explain why she should never hit mommy or her brother.  We make it to her room and she throws herself on the bed in hysterics. 

It a little while, but she finally calmed down enough to listen to reason and believed us when we explained what happened once again.  I literally laugh out loud ever time I think about it.  I think to get the full appreciation for the craziness that went on in that 15 minutes, you just had to be there.