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.

Starting young

My name is Melissa. I have a two daughters, ages four and six months. I am 22 years old.

If you do your math, you will come to see that I was around 17 when I had my first daughter, Mya. 17 is a not the age many people think of as being in charge of another life. It is not legal to drink alcohol. It is not legal to smoke. It is not legal to vote, yet, I was given this life that depended on me for everything.

I was lucky, however, in the sense that the father of my daughter, John, was a man. He was 19 when Mya was born. He was overwhelmed with the thought of starting a family while we were so unprepared. And, we were very unprepared. But, he stood by me. He stood by me for the big announcements-to tell our parents, that they were going to be grandparents. He stood by me when I quit school, my job, and moved in with his family, and he stood by me when I went into labor in the middle of the night and had our baby. The decisions we made were very difficult. I rested my life in him. I had no money, no job, and nothing to my name.

Many people may say that these decisions were foolish. Looking back, I can see why, and could easily say the same to another girl in the same position. But, because John is a man, and not a dick, I made the right choices for my family.

Now, I am lucky enough to be a stay at home mom. We married in 2008, after being high school sweethearts since 2004. John was able to get his Bachelors in Nursing, and works as a registered nurse to support our family, and we live with no one, in our own apartment. And I am happy to say, through all of our hard work, I love my family, our home, and would not change a thing.