As some of you will remember our own Chris (Cueball) was kind enough to gift my 5 year old son, Mikey, with a lovely 06 female ball python in October of this year. Seven days ago Helori disappeared from her tub. I was helping Mike clean tubs and was far, far too tired to be working with the snakes. Though it was unintentional, one moment of my inattention, one binder clip not replaced properly and the little beauty that our son loves so much escaped.

To make the situation worse we had just relocated all the BP's from our secure BP room to a much more open family room due to some problems with keeping the old room properly heated. Had Helori escaped in the old room she would have been quickly located as it had been "snake proofed". The family room while warmer is open to the rest of the house and has the old fashioned large vent heating so it's likely Helori is gone forever. We couldn't feel any worse about this and of course informed Chris and spoke with him privately. Now the next problem if this situation wasn't bad enough.....

What in the world should we do about Mikey? We've managed to avoid him knowing Helori is gone this past week with excuses and so forth. He's had a touch of the flu so hasn't been all that interested in holding or feeding his snake anyways. If he was a bit older (he's only 5) I would say to tell him the truth and deal with his sorrow and likely being angry that mom lost his snake. At 5 though he really doesn't understand death and loss all that much.

So two choices really....

#1 Tell him the truth and just deal with whatever fallout occurs.

#2 Quietly buy a similar snake and say nothing.

Personally I hate, hate, hate lying to my kids on any matter but Mikey has never lost a pet, didn't seem to understand when his Great Grandpa died awhile ago and I'm just not sure if it's kind to expect him to handle his pet snake being lost to him. Is it kinder to just get another snake and spare him the upset? I also don't like the idea of "replacing" a snake like they didn't mean much....Helori meant a lot to all of us and especially precious because she was Mikey's and a gift from a friend...but I don't want to hurt our little boy more than necessary.

Advice please folks and also prayers and best wishes. We are still holding out a faint hope that Helori has survived and is somewhere in this huge old house hiding but realistically I doubt it.

My favorite picture of Mikey and Helori (lordy but as a mom this is just breaking my heart folks).....


I also wanted to post this thread as a warning to others. I know the rules about keeping snakes, I'm nearly anal in locking down the snakes and I still did this. I learned a valuable lesson in a horrible way....don't work with these lovely creatures if you aren't fully able to focus on what you are doing. If I could go back and do it over I should have known I was far, far too tired and distracted and just let Mike do all the tubs. Knowing my own limits has always been an issue for me and in this case beautiful Helori and our son Mikey are going to pay the price for my own stupidity.

Our thanks to Chris for being very understanding about this. You're a great guy Chris and I'm so sorry about this happening.