I Need Spring

Even though we’ve had an incredibly mild winter as far as snow is concerned, it’s been stinking cold out. My feet have been permanently constricted by wool socks and my toes are itching to be free! The boys have been begging for their bikes to come down from the hooks in the garage, and I REALLY need my kids and the hoards of visiting neighborhood children to be able to play outside instead of in my house. Winter is hard on houses and mother’s nerves, that’s for sure.

Something else that’s triggering us all to pine after warmer weather is our new pet butterflies. Jonathan asked for and received a butterfly habitat for Christmas. We sent for our baby caterpillars in the mail and we’ve all been observing the miracle of the cycle of life ever since they arrived.

Along with the habitat Jonathan received this book, and we’ve been studying while observing.

Did you know that once the caterpillar wraps itself tightly inside it’s chrysalis, it completely liquefies before it magically reorganizes into a beautiful butterfly?  I didn’t know that. Pretty amazing!

It’s quiet magical watching this transformation process.

The caterpillars (although a bit creepy-crawly for my taste) were fascinating to watch as they went from tiny and spindly, to fat and happy in no time. We got excited when they all started attaching themselves upside down to the top of their containers. I feel bad I didn’t take a picture of them hanging there.

When the butterflies are ready to hatch, their chrysalis’ turn from a light tan color to a dark brown. One Sunday morning just before church, the kids discovered these dark chrysalis’ and all of the sudden, butterflies starting to emerge…

We were late for church that morning, but it was worth it.

When a butterfly hatches, of course it’s wings are all scrunched up. The butterfly hangs from the chrysalis for a bit and then it starts to pumps its wings steadily and slowly all the while constricting it’s body to force yellowish insect blood called hemolymph, into the wing veins so they can expand and open to full size. If the butterfly doesn’t succeed in expanding it’s wings correctly within a small window of time, it’s wings will harden in a folded position and be permanently deformed. I felt myself getting nervous that our butterflies would end up deformed, but luckily they were all successful in their wing expanding endeavors. Phew!

We had one little straggler among our group of caterpillars. This little guy was the last one to get fat, the last one to hang upside down and form his chrysalis, and the last little bugger to hatch. The kids were at school when he finally broke out and I got to sit in silence and watch him wiggle his way to freedom. It was a moment, I must say.

Alas, like all pet owning endeavors that involve kids, it’s the parents that get stuck with maintenance once the novelty wears off. I’ve faithfully feed our butterflies their orange slices and sugar water and sadly disposed of the bodies once their short little lives on earth have ended (butterflies life spans are only about 3 weeks long).

It’s been sad to see our little Painted Lady butterflies go. Just this morning I laid one to rest on top of a banana peel in the kitchen trash can. (We still have two survivors left)

It’s been a educational and fascinating process to observe (a reminder of how wonderfully perfect God’s creation are), but now I’m ready to see butterflies in their natural habitat…for instance, in my flower garden, like this…

Painted Lady Butterfly

I need Spring! And because I need spring, my springtime blog header is going up today.