Buggy surprises.

Starting young, and poor, we always appreciated the little joys that could happen. Although we are living a lot more comfortably, we still want to teach our girls to enjoy simple things. When we found a little green caterpillar,  in my mother's basil garden, Mya was overjoyed. And, I knew we could add a little lesson, and make it special.

We took the little green inchworm home, with a bunch of the basil he was found in, and put home in a little Kritter Keeper. Two days passed and I noticed the basil was beginning to wilt, so I took each piece out very carefully and inspected it, looking for out little green friend. My heart sank, when I took out the last piece, and still had not a sign of life-except for the mountains of caterpillar poop. I had to tell Mya, that her little pet was no more. Then I noticed what looked like a bit of white cotton it the corner of the Kritter Keeper. It had cocooned!

A beautiful green cocoon.

Wonderful! I called Mya to see her friend in his dormant state, when she happily told me, "Mom! Shhh! He's sleeping! He has to sleep a lot to become a butterfly!"

A few more days passed, and our cocoon began to turn a little brown. You could start to see an outline of wings. Unfortunately,  I procrastinated a day too much to get a picture of this stage of his development, because as we were all sitting on the couch, I heard a crash. Oh no! The cats knocked over the Kritter Keeper! "That was the caterpillar, John!" I was nursing Zoey, so it would have taken me a bit longer to run to his aid.

John picked up his home and sighed, "Dumb cats, they knocked it out of the cocoon. It's dead." I was a little confused, so I investigated.
It hatched! The cats must have seen it moving and knocked it down trying to catch it.

He looked like he was a bit cramped. Welcome to the world, Mr. Moth.

He was still wrinkled from just waking up, but he was very much alive, but not so much a butterfly. We called Mya. She was wonderfully excited and wanted to go out to pick him flowers. I told her we should wait until it was a bit darker, because moths prefer night, and he needs to rest after hatching.

He fluffed out, and became much more active within a few hours.

His cocoon, with a hole in the top, form hatching.

 A view of his wings. Quite pretty, in daylight.

His fluffy body.  

As promised, as soon as it was dark, we took him out to live wild and free, where bugs should be. Mya was ecstatic to let him go, and chose the flower he should land on. He had different plans, of course, but it was very thoughtful.

Mya informed me that moths were "nighttime butterflies."

The lid was a little tricky, especially while he was fluttering around, waiting his release. 

"Come out moth!"

 "Why'd he go up there?! He should have landed on that flower!"

Overall, it was a wonderful experience. Mya got to see a creature go through three life stages. Not many people get to see that. Honestly, I may have been just as excited when I first noticed the cocoon. Mya said "We have to get two worms from Grandma's garden next time! So, we can let two moths go! Maybe one will be a butterfly, and one will be a moth next time!"

As I was tucking her into bed, I asked if she gave the moth a name. She looked thoughtful for a moment, even put her finger on her chin, and responded, "Poopsauce." 

What?

"I named him Poopsauce, because he pooped so much when he was a caterpillar."  

Good luck in life, Poopsauce. I hope you are happily fluttering around a light somewhere.