A couple of weeks ago, my parents picked up Graham on their way from my sister's graduation in Knoxville back to Memphis. I was heading to Memphis the next day, so I thought a few hours away from him wouldn't kill me. Plus I was exhausted and could use a break! When I got to Memphis the next day, there was my little boy walking around the house with a rubber snake around his neck. He would come up to you and try to "get you" with the snake and other times he would just roam the house with the snake on his shoulders. It was a little scary looking, but he loved it, and I couldn't take away something that his Nattie had given him! A few days later we were in the car on our way to the zoo. G of course had his snake with him! One minute he was biting the snake's head and the next minute I heard a loud POW! My eyes quickly shot over to Graham, and it looked like this 16 month old had suddenly developed a refined palate for caviar. He had tiny black beads pouring out of his mouth. It took me a minute to figure out what had happened. "Oh my gosh, oh my gosh. The snake broke!" I yelled as my sister found a place to pull over. Graham started crying a little, but I needed to quickly dig out all the beads from his mouth! Finally I got them out, although I was sure he swallowed a few of them in the process. Thanks to phones with Internet, we quickly discovered the beads were not toxic and continued on our way to the zoo- sans the snake around Graham's neck. Lesson learned: If you have a little kid who wants to play with a rubber snake, you better watch out. Those fake snakes just might come to life! That's all I'm saying.