Summer is officially here! We have already had a fun thing to do around here - we have raised butterflies! It wasn't my idea. Owen sweet-talked his Nonnie into buying him a butterfly garden at Wal-Mart a few weeks ago, thus began our butterfly garden. What Owen did not understand was that there were not actually butterflies inside the box that the butterfly garden came in. THE CATERPILLARS HAD TO BE ORDERED AND MAILED TO US, WHICH TOOK 7 DAYS!!! So for 7 days I had to explain where the caterpillars were. I finally made him understand that they were coming through the mail. So every time the Fed Ex truck came or each time we went to the post office, he asked if they were here yet.
The day finally came. Owen was with me when I opened the mailbox and saw "the box." It said,
"Live caterpillars. Open immediately." Whew! They made it. So we hurried inside and opened the box to find this container, with 5 teeny-tiny caterpillars inside.
After that, we just waited some more. All five caterpillars had to slowly climb up to the top of the container and learn how to hang upside down to start building their cocoons. We watched them every day. Sometimes they'd get up there and start to curl up and then they'd fall back down and have to start their long journey back to the top. Oh boy. THE CATERPILLARS TOOK 7 MORE DAYS TO MAKE COCOONS. In case you are not good at math, it has been14 days at this point, and Owen is still asking, "Where are the butterflies?" This was a huge lesson in patience for my almost-4-yr-old.
Every day we wrote in our butterfly journal about what was happening, which was basically a lot of NOTHING! They'd climb up, fall down, climb up, fall down. FINALLY, 2 of them made it to the top and built cocoons. Owen named those two "Cargenia" (don't ask) and "Twist." Unfortunately, Cargenia somehow fell from the top after she had made her cocoon, so when she landed on the bottom she was just stuck there, and that was the end of her. Owen was a little sad but just shifted his focus to the other three, who were now on the top and almost curled up into cocoons. He named those three "Slide," "Over" and "Straight."
After those four were safely inside their cocoons, Ben removed the paper lining that they were hanging from and pinned it to the inside of the butterfly "habitat." Then, WE WAITED SOME MORE. After 5 more days, we finally had a butterfly!! On day 6 of the cocoon period, we had another! And on day 7, we had the last 2 butterflies! Owen was SO EXCITED!! We put two orange slices in the bottom and wads of paper towel dipped in sugar water for them to drink from.
Owen carried the habitat all over our house and so quietly and sweetly observed them fluttering around. One night after he was asleep I remembered he had left them in our upstairs play room, which gets very hot! I rushed up there, certain they had croaked, but they were happily flying around. Whew!
So this morning was a big morning...we let them go! I forgot to mention that Owen's Pop & Nonnie came out and planted a butterfly bush for Owen a few weeks ago. We can see it out of our big window where our kitchen table is, so we watch other butterflies and hummingbirds drink from it while we eat our meals. So anyway, we went outside this morning, stood beside the bush, and told Twist, Slide, Over & Straight good-bye.
Owen let them go individually. He had to kind of help them out of the habitat one by one. One of them even crawled up into his hand, and he held it for a good minute before it decided to fly away. It was so precious.
"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!"
II Corinthians 5:17
It's late, and I'm ready for bed. I'll try to post some new pics of sweet Shepard tomorrow. He is so big! Crawling all over, pulling up, and has two teeth. And he has discovered the magnets on the fridge...so fun!
