A Caterpillar of Our Community

Eden is our budding zoologist, veterinarian, or Jack Hannah...not sure which yet. In the last month she's become obsessed with animals and keeping animals in our house. Dan brought home a couple of small frogs a few weeks back and we had to release them because they wouldn't eat, so we were afraid they were not happy in their takeout-box-turned-reptilian-habitat. So she was bummed. Then when our fun visit to the pet store to "pet" the puppies didn't end up with us taking one home, she was depressed for a good two days.

She loves animal books and especially "learning" type books- like non-fiction, encyclopedia type books. Her latest love is the Butterfly ABC book, where each letter has a corresponding butterfly type. The other day while outside, she yelled to me, "Mom! Check it out! This caterpillar is pupating!!"

So here is the funny story...you knew there was one coming, didn't you? I was outside on the step reading the mail and Eden was drawing rainbows with sidewalk chalk. (Backstory: the kids picked cattails at Beaver Creek so there is cattail fuzzy stuff all over our sidewalk) Eden began to draw over some of the fuzz, then all of the sudden, jumped a mile and yelled, "OhMYGOODNESS IT MOVED!" I jumped up and looked down at the sidewalk where a fuzzy caterpillar with sticky outie hair and a chalk print on his back wriggled on the step. After Eden's pulse went down :) she began playing with it and asking if we could keep it. I told her to make a nice place for it to stay with leaves and grass. She did this and I was proud of her for taking such good care of it. She propped a stick in it in case it needed to make a chrysallis, she said.

Later, we were inside, and I was admittedly reading blogs and trying to figure out my new blog makeover's html. Eden was talking to her little caterpillar friend (whom she had brought in from outside against my wishes, but like I said, I was sort of occupied)...anyway, she took it out on its stick apparently and was twirling around with it on the stick. She got to going a little fast and the caterpillar flew into the air and was gone...Eden says, "Uh oh! I think I flung it a little hard!" At this, I awoke out of my blog coma, and became Angry Mom. "What did you do? Did you throw it? Where is it? FIND IT!!" Caterpillars are basically harmless as long as you don't wear a loin cloth made out of leaves, but they still creep me out and I didn't want one in my house. Eden started looking around and I did too. Under a washcloth, I find it. "Here it is Eden, " I say sternly, "Now take it outside!"

Eden replies, "Oh, yeah. I was going to leave it outside, I forgot. Thanks for the advice, Mom."