Sadie's Butterflies

A couple of months ago Nani ordered Sadie a butterfly kit. The butterfly kit came (butterfly-less, because you send for the butterflies after you get the kit) and Sadie was obsessed. She read books about butterflies. She talked about them constantly. And finally when the sent for butterflies arrived (weeks earlier than the date we requested... while Nani and Mommy worried about late frosts...) she became obsessed with caterpillars.

Sadie became a butterfly trivia sponge. She absorbed every fact about butterflies that she heard. She watched the tiny caterpillars crawl around their little cup environment and then rapidly began to grow. And finally each one made its own chrysalis and we got ready to wait for them to reappear as butterflies.

There were a few bumps along the way. One of the chrysalises fell when we transferred them to their new net environment from the cup. We put it on white paper like the instructions said, but it didn't look too healthy down their. The second bump was that, because they'd come so early, they looked like they'd probably emerge when we were at Paul's graduation. So Nani and Sadie put flowers and orange slices in the bottom of the netted area before we left (I think there was sugar water too, like the stuff Nani makes for the hummingbirds), covered the butterfly habitat, and all hoped we'd be home before they emerged.

The next bump was a bit bigger. As we were driving back from the graduation, Nini called and said that the cats had gotten to the netting and knocked it over (despite the fact that it was up fairly high and covered) and that some of the butterflies had hatched and looked hurt. We were anxious on the drive home.

Miraculously, during the cat meets butterfly encounter, none of the butterflies were hurt. Sadie released each of them enthusiastically. Each one flew away.

Today's picture is of the last butterfly. It's the one whose chrysalis had fallen down. After we put him outside Sadie came over and said "You fell down! Now fly away!" And ran over to try and climb into the seat of Grumpa's little lawn mower tractor.

And now she's always thrilled to point out butterflies. And sometimes when she says "A bug bit Mae Bae... Mae Bae go hospital..." she'll add that it was a butterfly... or a ladybug... (It was a tick!).