my son loves snakes.

Last spring Henry went with his cousin and his uncle to a nearby pile of wood chips in hopes of finding snakes.  His cousin, who is 4.5 years older, claimed to love catching snakes.  When they found a snake, his cousin lunged for the snake, just missing it.  Apparently he was a very good actor and didn't really want to touch the snake.  His dad called him out on it which embarrassed him.  But then Henry made the situation worse by bending over and picking up the snake and waving it in their faces, "Here you go!  It's not hard to catch it!  I got it for you, you can take it if you want it now.  I'll find another one.  It's okay."  He was trying to help.  Nobody wanted the snake.  My brother was old enough to comfortably admit that he wanted nothing to do with the snake.  His son continued the charade and said he would catch his own and waved Henry's snake off. 

Yesterday we were at my niece and nephew's open house.  Henry's cousin found a snake and next thing you know, Henry and 4 or 5 of his cousins set off with a bucket to find the snake.  I told my sister and brother-in-law that Henry would catch the snake.  They didn't believe me because besides his 9-year-old cousin, the rest were at least 13 years old.  A little while later I looked way across the yard and could see them all peering into a bucket.  I assumed my sister was right and someone else caught the snake.  The group started making their way back across the yard, Henry riding on his cousin's shoulders.  I waved to them and my nephew pointed to Henry sitting on his shoulders and yelled, "He got it!"  Sure enough, the boys all came running up cracking up because they were all afraid to touch the snake and next thing they knew, Henry picked it up and said, "Here guys, I got it for you.  You can have it now." and put it in the bucket for them.  I told  Henry I was proud of him for catching that snake because his much older cousins couldn't even do that.  He said, "well mom, the snake was just slitherin' through the grass and I grabbed it.  It was easy.  They can do it if they try."  and then he reached for the bucket and said, "Here, I'll let it go so you guys can catch it too!  It's fun!"

Oh, the screaming.  Henry laughed.  When I stopped screaming I laughed.  Everyone laughed.  Henry was the talk of the party.  "Who is that little boy with the fly tie that can catch snakes like a boss?"

Then they let the snake go waaaaaay on the other side of the house.