Butterflies
My youngest daughter loves butterflies. Last summer she could walk up to flowers and the butterflies would just sit there and wait for her to catch them and put them in her “bug box”. When she got ready to let them go, they would wait until she reached in to pull them out. It was really amazing to watch.
So her birthday was a month or so ago. My mom gave her a present that our whole family has been enjoying. It’s a Butterfly Bungalow from insectlore.com. It’s a net tent that is big enough for a child to climb into, and it comes with a coupon to send off to get live caterpillars shipped to you. The caterpillars they send are for Painted Lady butterflies. You get to watch them go through the entire life cycle.
Our daughters have been watching with great excitement as they have gone through each stage, and yesterday the first one came out of its chrysalis. Today we have four…with six more left to “hatch”. Tonight, I crawled into the bungalow with my five year old to play with the butterflies. I did mention that the tent was big enough for a child to climb into…right? Big fat daddy was a bit cramped! It was fun though…and my wife took plenty of pictures of us playing with them. As she was taking pictures of me and our daughters with butterflies on our noses, Julie commented that it reminded her a bit of the advertisements for the movie Silence of the Lambs. That’s just a bit creepy.