Caterpillar Catastrophe

Last fall Karsyn found a caterpillar at the park during playgroup. Karsyn tends to wander off looking for nature during playgroups. I often find acorns, rocks, twigs, dirt, shells and leaves in my washing machine. Her grandfather and a certain friend...think it is so funny that we have a little hoarder of "stuff" so they encourage this type of on going collection.

Last fall didn't turn out to be such a positive experience for her. She found this cute little furry caterpillar, put it in a, bug habitat, as she called it and supplied it with all the proper leaves and twigs.

The little guy made a nice little cocoon and then stayed that way for months. (dead)

Sometime this winter after watching hoarders when the girls were at school I vowed to clean out under Karsyn's bed. I found this little guy in his bug habitat and decided that he wasn't going to turn into a beautiful butterfly so I sent him to the trash. Thinking that Karsyn had long forgotten about her little guy, I thought I was in the clear. I was until the first playdate at the park this spring. She remembered finding him at the park and asked, "Mom, I haven't seen my caterpillar, I left him under my bed, do you know where he went?"

Oh crud.... I couldn't lie to her so on our walk home from the park I came up with an ellaborate description on how he didn't make it and how he had to take a ride in the big black container to caterpillar heaven. She then began to ask who came and got it and where did it go. I told her, "Well... I sent it in this big black container, on a big silver truck, to a big green hill." She had to ask me what the big black container looked like. As we were walking and it was "trash," day I said, "Well it had big a A.C.E on it." About 2 minutes down the road, it dawned on her as she read the trash cans...and she looked at me and said, "Mom....how could you! You threw it away?" I broke her little heart. I tried to justify it, but in the end I promised her that if we found another caterpillar we would bring it home.

So the other night we took a family walk and as she came across another furry little caterpillar she jumped off her bike reminding me that I promised her she could bring it home.

Kaydree, Benjy and I tried to convince her that if she brought it home it would more then likely die just like the last one. We tried to tell her that by taking it off the path we might be taking it away from little babies that need to eat. She didn't care... she wanted that caterpillar.

She wouldn't touch the caterpillar and she wanted one of us to get it. So we then tried to sidetrack her again and said that if she wanted him, she had to pick him up herself. Well after leaving a couple of times and coming back to it, she finally worked up the courage to hold him. Benjy is afraid she might need therapy after this whole drawn out dramatic scene took place.

She is so happy to be the proud Mama of another caterpillar, that stays outside in our hosta plant. She didn't want me to blog about it, because she is convinced that if some of you find out about it, you might want to come and take him.

Yesterday she jumped out of bed and immediately went outside to check on him. This continued about every 15 minutes throughout the day. I found her out in the yard at one point yelling, "caw caw..." and flapping her arms, trying to chase some birds away so that they wouldn't try to eat him. Then she began singing, "Birds, Birds...go away come back some other day!" I just chuckled at her throughout the day until we went to the gym and she had to leave because her caterpillar might be getting rained on. Right now she just made Benjy go out in the dark to scare some bugs away so she could check on him before bed.

Here are some pictures of her furry little guy. We shall see if he is there, again, in the morning. If not, it could be a tough day for all of us....