Butterfly Garden

Emma received a very fun, educational gift for her birthday from Uncle Ryan and Aunt Becky.  They sent her 5 live caterpillars that came in a little jar.  We watched them eat and grow exponentially for 9 days until they entered the pupal stage of growth and turned into chrysalids.  At this stage we had to move the cocoons from the cup that they arrived in and put them into the butterfly garden.  We waited patiently for 8 more days until suddenly 5 live butterflies emerged!

Emma and Anna both loved watching the changes.  Emma watched intently every day and literally called me over to the cup 10 times a day to see the "growing caterpillars!"  She was so excited to be able to see the final butterflies and even more excited that all 5 caterpillars made it alive all the way to the butterfly stage.  We took pictures along the way of the growth and changes.

Yay!  Our LIVE caterpillars have arrived in the mail!

Caterpillars Day 1

Caterpillars Day 3

Caterpillars Day 5

All caterpillars have turned into cocoons and are "hanging" from the top of the jar

We have a butterfly!!

 The girls were so excited to have 5 butterflies and we decided to take them outside to let them be free.  They first watched them very intently as they were flying around in the garden.

 We watched as the first three butterflies slowly flew out of the garden and disappeared.  The last two butterflies were very reluctant to leave and we had to help them along a bit.  I picked up the fourth one and let it fly away.  Emma decided she wanted to pick up the last one and let it fly away.  She got scared to touch it and gave the task to me once again:)

This might be the part of the story where your heart is going pitter patter.  What is sweeter than a four year old enthralled in the process of metamorphosis?  She intently watched the process every day for 17 days without losing interest and was BEYOND excited to finally see the butterflies emerge.  However, the story does not end here.

The very last butterfly that I had to fish out of the garden I decided to place on the leaf of a flower in my pot on the porch.  I thought it would be fun to have the girls look at it up close outside of the netting.  Emma immediately ran over to watch the butterfly and the butterfly immediately flew and landed on her leg.  Emma got all excited and nervous to have it on her and started jumping up and down.  The butterfly fell off her leg and landed on the ground.  In Emma's fury of jumping up and down, what happened?  SPLAT!!  She jumped right on top of the butterfly and smooshed it!

OMG!  I almost died laughing.  The irony was just too much to not find hilarious.  She could not wait for the butterflies and in her excitement she jumped on it and killed it.  She cried for 30 minutes straight.  She felt horrible.  I even made up a lie and said it might be OK if we put it in the bush in the shade and it had some time to heal.  This butterfly was not healing, but I had to try something to calm her down. 

It was really quite funny how this all ended.  It was a great learning experience to watch the whole process of metamorphosis and both girls loved it.  Thanks Uncle Ryan and Aunt Becky for the fun gift!