It's alive!!

Two weeks ago Emmalee came home from the cabin with her bugbox. In the bug box was one stick, one lady bug, one green leaf and the prize in the box was a big green caterpillar.

In the first night there were many changes in the box. The leaf dried out and rolled up, the ladybug died, and the caterpillar spun a cocoon!!  It is so cool how that thing worked overnight and spun a bunch of tiny fibers into a solid mass.

For two weeks the bugbox was the center piece of our kitchen table and we waited to see if anything would come of it. On Monday, as I was leaving for work, I noticed the bugbox was gone! I first assumed one of the kids took it but then noticed it was on the floor. The thing struggled so hard to get out it made the very heavy duty wooden box... okay so it was a cheap Target dollar spot box .... but still it walked it off the table. As all of this was happening Ryan came in all excited to see the beautiful butterfly that had emerged (because that's what Eric Carle says happens in his book) well much to his dismay it was an ugly brown moth laying belly up. I quickly informed Ryan that the moth had hurt his head when he fell from the table and was sleeping it off. I left for work with the intentions of dumping the box and making it look like I had freed the moth.

Well like any good overwhelmed mom I completely forgot about it until last night around midnight when Keith came running unto the bedroom to tell me the moth was alive and flapping. At first I thought he was just excited the thing lived but then realized no, he was really just scared of the flapping noise and the possibility of it getting out. I told him to cut the screen outside and let it go. Which he did... and he survived... I mean Keith survived and so did the moth.

When I left this morning it was still in the box, belly up, flapping away. So I shook it out of the hole and watched it lay on the patio table flapping. Three hours later when I got home it was gone so either it flew away, blew away, or something ate it.

Biggest lesson the kids learned? ... Not all caterpillars are beautiful butterflies and daddy doesn't like bugs.