First Pets

This morning we picked up three tiny caterpillars from Ashley's wonderful preschool teacher from two years ago. Right now they are each in a little container with white mush on the bottom - all the food they'll need for weeks to grow and get bigger, and ultimately turn themselves into butterflies. When we did this last time the kids were so young they didn't really appreciate it. But I did. I loved watching the transformation.

We've had our new pets for half a day now and Jake has checked to see if his has grown about once every hour. He is insistent that it is bigger already. But I worry that his is going to die from all of the movement it gets. Tonight Luke asked if it was okay to turn his bedroom light off with the caterpillar in there - and Jake quietly shut his bedroom door when he said good-night to his. Later, when asked to put his clothes away Jakey asked, "but dad, can I just put mine on the outside of my door because I will wake my caterpillar up?" It was adorable.

This will be a fun process for us to watch over the next three to four weeks.

Mr. Caterpillar even joined us for dinner. Lovely.