The Snail Incident

Don't let this sweet, adorable exterior deceive you. Behind those butter-wouldn't-melt eyes lies a very mischievous little girl.

Of course I am talking about the snail incident.

The incident that has left me partially traumatised and completely disgusted at the same time. It started with a lovely, seemingly innocent game Alice had constructed of collecting snails in a little pot. And it ended in... well to be quite honest, murder.

As Alice toddled around the garden collecting snails in her little pot, I have to say I thought it was a lovely little game. I even instagramed a picture of it! How sweet, I thought. Alice has learned to collect things. I had dreams of making little shell collections and painting rocks different colours...

After a little while I noticed Alice was returning to the same spot, snail-less. Hmm... I thought... Where is she putting all these snails? I asked her, obviously, and was greeted by a smile much like the one you see above. Innocent... but with a hint of something slightly more sinister. She's up to something, I concluded.

So I followed her. Into the pot the snail went. Then she stood up and toddled down the steps, heading to the backdoor, where she quickly dropped to her knees, and took out the quivering little snail. It was then that I noticed the pile of recently deceased (alright, murdered) snails lying eerily in the corner. On even closer inspection, I see a strange yellow goo covering Alice's t-shirt and hands. Oh my god.

Not only had my daughter been murdering snails, but she had been killing them with her bare hands. Literally.

When I signed up to this motherhood thing, I was not ready for such atrocities. It was a scene from a snail-horror film.

I spent the rest of the afternoon wiping yellow snail guts off of Alice, which had gotten EVERYWHERE by the way, and hoping snails was the only animal I would ever have to clear up after a massacre caused by my own daughter...

xx