This afternoon, the pupa we adopted at Butterfly World (and named Chaia) hatched. We watched her flap her wings inside the safe confines of her container, indicating she was ready to leave us. I've gotten strangely accustomed to neurotically checking in on Chaia multiple times a day, worrying she's going to emerge when we're not home or can't immediately get to her. She had impeccable timing today, deciding to emerge shortly after Ethan awoke from his nap and was lazily munching on an afternoon snack.
And then she was gone, fluttering higher and higher up into the sky until we could no longer see her. The sun stung at our eyes and we made our way back into the house. Ethan eyed the empty jar and then moved his eyes back towards the sky. Sometimes there aren't words for how incredible nature is or, even moreso, how magical it is experiencing the things we take for granted with our children.
This is wonderful. We've actually got a few habitats with about 7 caterpillars total that we took from our backyard. We usually only get the monarchs in the front- but recently we've noticed a wild vine that some orange caterpillars love and some white caterpillars have shown up on our lime tree. Lily is in love with the caterpillars and Richie wrote a book called "The Caterpillar Eats the Big Bob" (second in his Big Bob series). If Ethan wants one, we've be more than happy to make you a little habitat!
ReplyDeleteThis is really awesome. I love that picture of him watching it fly away.
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