growing butterflies {pondering transformation}

My second son is 5. He loves animals and butterflies…and butterflies & grasshoppers love him. I got him a butterfly net and cage from Target at the start of the summer. The net broke about a month ago, after catching lots and lots of butterflies everyday. The cage was approaching its last days too. The set came with a coupon to order caterpillars. Knowing my son would be over the moon, I finally placed the order and 6 little crawly things made residence in my kitchen. I didn’t get a picture of them as caterpillars – they didn’t do much. In fact, each day I thought they were dead. Then a couple weeks later, they made their way to the top of the plastic thing they came in. Cocoons were formed. It was crazy to watch.

The directions said to gently remove them from the plastic holder and into the cage where they could ‘hang naturally’. Ummm…exactly how is one supposed to do that? It took me a while to figure something out, so I am sharing it here in case one of you finds yourself trying to naturally hang cocoons one day 🙂

I cut a small piece of cardboard and taped the the paper thing the cocoons were hanging from to the cardboard…then rested it on sticks in our cage.

I was trying to get some photos of the cocoons in the cage, but it was really hard with the netting. Since the cage was in its last days anyway, I just cut a little square out. There were a few times those little guys would shake so violently I was sure I would get to witness one soaring out. But after an hour, the violent shaking would stop. Bummer. Hour wasted.

Photo tip: My aperture was set at f/2.8, when I focused on the net…the cocoons were blurry, when I focused on the cocoons, the net nearly disappears. The aperture determines your depth of field (the area that is in focus). A bigger number after that “f” would mean more of the cocoons would be in focus on the first picture and more of the net in focus on the second picture.

Each time I saw a bit of movement, I would just sit and wait. I had to be there when one came out of that cocoon and soared high. Evidently, I have read Hermie: A Common Caterpillar way too many times. Hermie soars when he breaks out of the cocoon. Our butterflies did not. They came out with wings kind of rolled up. They didn’t fly. They hung from things, many looked dead they were so still.

The boys waited with me. We all just waited. We waited for our ugly little caterpillars to finally emerge as beautiful soaring butterflies. We waited. We watched. One of us waited and watched as a viking.

Sadly, despite constant observation none of us got to see any come out of the cocoons. We came home one day to find them all out…but just hanging. No soaring. Since I had cut a hole and I didn’t want them to start making new caterpillars in the house….we took them outside to watch them learn to fly.

More waiting.

She got tired of all the waiting and curled up in her daddy’s arms. She was tired and still.

Eventually, one started getting closer to the top….

And then it struggled to get on top of the cage. My butterfly loving son was intent on wanting it to fly to him.

Soon it did. It hung out on his finger for a long time and then eventually it flew on its own into the weed overgrown flowerbed flower garden. My son sighed, smiled and went back to watch the rest.

I’ve never seen butterflies after I had first seen them as caterpillars. The transformation was amazing, but there was a great amount of struggle and waiting. Looking at those butterflies fluttering in the garden, it was hard to believe they were the same ugly crawly things that sat in a plastic thing in my kitchen. It made me think about my own life…about parenting. It made me think about how true beauty doesn’t just happen. Butterflies don’t just go to sleep and then wake up soaring the blue skies. It is making me think. Thinking about the woman I want to be. Thinking about the transformation that takes place from the tender cries of a newborn to a graduate receiving a diploma. It is making me think……..maybe this is what life is like after diapers…..thinking 🙂