My Son

Tuesday, July 26, 2005

For about the last 4 years, my now six year-old son has been a serious bug boy. He absolutely loves bugs. Spiders, weird beetles, grasshoppers, moths, things I cannot even put a name to actually. A couple of years ago, there was this humungous thing on our swingset. I was sitting about 50 yards away and I could see it from where I sat. Of course my then 3 year old son was just beginning his curiosity so he was the very first one I told not to touch this bug. It looked like a giant fly, it was about 2 inches long and about 1 inch wide. Not to be offensive to anyone but it was quite ugly and gave me the chills up the spine. We scrambled to find my son's bug book, scoured his room, our bookshelf and finally found it.

While I was looking for this strange species, up walks my son, bug in hand and he said, "Here mommy, here's the bug. Don't worry, he doesn't bite". I jumped as in order for my son to show me such a thing, he placed it about 2 inches from my face. Of course I freaked out and told him to put it down, while my daughter is on the other side of me saying she had found the bug in our book. They said, "hey, we learned about these in school. This is a cicada mom". At the time, all I cared about was getting that bug out of my sons fingers and into the bucket so he didn't get bit and we could all look it. In the end, we all walked down to the woods and placed it on a tree but I now know what makes that buzzing sound every once in a while, that sound that used to make me run into my house as a little girl because I was terrified of it.

We have since moved on into the world of the monarch caterpillar. What a beautiful creature. I worked with my friend in her daycare for about a year and she used to collect monarch caterpillars for a 'science project' for her daycare kids. She had a butterfly house and we would watch as the caterpillar grew big and fat and make their way to the top of the mesh house to begin the process forming into their chrysalis. I had never seen one before that so I was quite impressed and awed by how smooth they looked and how compact. The first time I saw a butterfly emerge was really a cool experience. I didn't see it from beginning to end but wondered how in the heck that big butterfly came out of that small little chrysalis.

After that year, I actually went to the task of building my own butterfly house. Wood and screen and a bunch of staples to hold the screen and for you men, I used screws, not nails to hold the wood together. I was actually pretty proud of my creation. Its about 2 feet tall, and a foot wide on all sides and it is all screened in. I even created a way in which to hold the top shut by wrapping the screen around a piece of wood and hanging down one side.

Needless to say, my husband laughed at my sorry attempt but was quite impressed. He laughed because it is a little lopsided. It rocks a bit but I said, 'well, its just for the kids for science projects.and it's not like it has to hold a hundred pounds" and he gave me a hug. Thought it was cute that I would go to so much trouble.

So, a couple of years ago, I began my own caterpillar science projects. My son was all gung ho! "mom is gonna let me have bugs in the house, yeah". He didn't say that but I could sense that excitement from him. He went on his caterpillar hunt and that year we found 8. All of them successfully turned into butterflies except for 1. My son's curiosity got the best of him when we weren't looking and he had to see the inside of the chrysalis. I reprimanded him for that but not too harshly. Only because he had put a lot of effort into this project. I understood that being the boy that he is that he only wanted to see how things worked.

Once he realized he had killed it he got big alligator tears and said he didn't mean to hurt it, he just wanted to see the butterfly. He broke my heart. We even had to bring this cage on a week long family vacation, that is just how pathetic I am as I wanted to make sure we didn't starve them or anything while we were gone. We, once again, were always too late to see the butterflies emerge. But we were able to see through the chrysalis and see the spots on the wings and such.

Last year, we were only able to collect 3 caterpillars. But we weren't about to let the 'birth' of these butterfliesescape our attention this time. What a cool thing to see. It takes only moments to come out and it is just this tiny little monarch butterfly and the wings grow before your eyes, literally. It takes about an hour or two before they are at their full size and then they practice their flutter and begin to fly around. This whole process takes about 4-6 hours. Once they are flying, we let them go and watch them fly around. They make their chrysalis and are there for about 7-8 days before they hatch. Each day that chrysalis gets more and more transparent.

Now, this year, my son has been a maniac. He has so far found 35 monarch caterpillars. 4 of which have already formed into chrysalis'. Some of these caterpillars are so microscopic I cannot even figure out how he spots them. It just amazes me. He is out with his big sister hunting for more as I write this. Yesterday he found 13 for his friend next door. They sure do poop a lot though.

So, once again, we are starting our new year of hatching butterflies. I'm hoping that we can get most of these caterpillars big and plump.

For my son, he is turning into quite a little man. He is learning to be gentle and to appreciate nature. He has a HUGE garden spider that he has had for a couple of weeks that he keeps feeding an assortment of bugs and is very sensitive about what goes in that butterfly house. He doesn't want anything to happen to his precious caterpillars. What a sweet little thing, he just breaks my heart.

Written by louie0768 .