Caterpillar Days

Here we are, smack dab in the middle of the caterpillar days of summer. And I don't know that the kids have ever enjoyed the caterpillar days as much as they are at this moment. Our new house seems to be right on the migratory path of the Monarch butterfly, and my mom's field is full of milkweed and baby monarch caterpillars. The kids have been collecting caterpillars and bringing them inside where we watch them grow, disappear inside a chrysalis, and hatch into butterflies. This year the symbolism seems especially relevant what with us having just moved, and the kids all transitioning into new classrooms. I think the big kids hatched out of their chrysalids on the first day of school, while Zeben is still stuck inside his, waiting to metamorphize into a confident preschooler, but still kind of wanting to cling to his mother milkweed (that would be me!). Anyway, symbolism aside, we've all been having a great time appreciating this magic of nature up close.

Jaz looks for any signs of caterpillars on a stalk of milkweed

Bringing fresh milkweed home for the caterpillars

The caterpillar house that Lukas designed
(made out of cardboard and mesh screening)

Over the course of a couple weeks, the caterpillars grow from teensy babies:

To adventuresome milkweed machines:

Before making their chrysalids on the ceiling of the house:

One day after collecting fresh milkweed and preparing it on the dining room table, Jaz spotted the tiniest caterpillar we'd ever seen! It looked like a small piece of hair, lying on the table. We actually didn't believe that it was a caterpillar until we'd looked at it with a magnifying glass.

"Peekaboo Cutiepie"

Luke studying the tiny "Peekaboo"

The first butterfly emerged yesterday, and luckily we were all there to watch it happen.

We brought it outside and consulted the monarch book to see if the butterfly was a boy or a girl.

It was a girl!

She didn't hang out long before fluttering off to the big flowering bush in our yard.

There are 7 chrysalids left hanging in the caterpillar house, and 3 caterpillars who are still eating milkweed and growing. By the time the last of them has flown off for Mexico, we'll be picking apples and getting ready to celebrate the start of fall. And hopefully by then all 3 kids will be happily settled into their new classrooms, and our new house will feel like home.