Every year at this time my kids love to go outside after school
and collect caterpillars that are sitting on the milkweed outside
our house. They spend hours outside "catching caterpillars" and
proudly bring them in one, two, three at a time to show me all
of the caterpillars they've collected. Usually we end up filling
a big ice cream bucket with sticks and twigs and put all of their
pet caterpillars in it.
This year my daughter Alyssa collected a few more caterpillars
than I could tolerate. She left the ice cream bucket on a shelf
and the caterpillars left droppings all over in it. She pulled
it down one afternoon to add yet another caterpillar and my
youngest daughter Rebekah got into it. The leaves, twigs,
caterpillars and their droppings had been scattered all over the
front room floor. By this time, the site of caterpillars
and the thought of cleaning up their mess made me upset to say
the least and I made Alyssa get rid of her collection and set all
of her caterpillars free.
Later on that week I was doing some housework and decided to water
my plants. I climbed up on a step stool and as I stepped down I
noticed something attached to my plant. It was a cocoon. One
of Alyssa's caterpillars had escaped and made it's way up to the
top of our entertainment center, onto a plant and went to work
spinning a cocoon. I was excited to show the kids when they
came home from school.
Every day after that the kids would have me lift them up to
see if the cocoon was still there. We all anxiously waited to
see what kind butterfly would become of this. But after a few
days my kids forgot that it was there. Our lives went on without
another thought.
A few weeks later I walked passed the entertainment center and
a beautiful monarch was sitting on top. I ran outside to get the
kids. They were amazed at it's beauty and my son was so excited
he said, "Mom, I raised a butterfly!". I had to laugh. Not much
effort was put into "raising" that butterfly. The monarch did it
all on it's own. We took the butterfly outside and watched it
fly away, my kids clapping and waiving.
Yesterday, Alyssa came home from a friends house and found a monarch
sitting inside our front door. She just knew it was the one we had
"raised", that it had come back to visit us. I thought about that and
how our kids are like butterflies. They start out as caterpillars
and if they're wrapped in the cocoon of love they'll turn into beautiful
butterflies. And they might even come back to visit once in awhile!
About the Author
Shannon is webmaster of a scrapbook page website specializing in premade scrapbook pages that have interesting facts and events happening the day you were born.
Related Features
Make a Butterfly Feeder
Grow a Butterfly Bush
Attracting Butterflies
