The Science Channel

WARNING: IF YOU ARE AN INSECTAPHOBE DON'T READ THIS POST!!!!


Sweet Zoe is almost on her way to having toe jam for breakfast. There was almost contact between toes and mouth today. She is also finally almost so close to sucking her thumb regularly. Then I can stop self soothing myself by sucking my thumb when she's crying because she hasn't figured out how to soothe herself. The only difficulty with the whole process is when she gets her thumb in her mouth and starts sucking the excitement causes her to throw her hands out.


The butterfly experiment has ended. The timing by Heather was perfect because we had just started reading a book called The Hungry Caterpillar. Heather had sent us caterpillars for Aubrey's birthday and they came with their own food and butterfly "tent" as well as instructions for how to care for the chrysalids (cocoons) and butterflies once they "hatched".

So we waited for about a week for the hungry caterpillars to eat and eat and eat, spin silky webs and then decide to hang upside down, shed their skin and become chrysalids.

One by one the caterpillars hung upside down. The last one was stubborn and refused to jump off the bridge with the rest of them for at least 24 hours. One creepy factoid I learned-the self defense mechanism to deter predators from consuming the coccoon is wild twitching. I read the fact and promptly forgot it until I had to move the chrysalids to the butterfly tent. Then three of the things started jumping/twitching like Mexican jumping beans and I screamed like a little girl. But I managed to hold it together and not drop the whole thing and secured it in the tent.

Everyday we checked the "catpillers" and Aubrey knew we were going to let the butterflies go. I didn't want to keep them in captivity for their lifespan (2 weeks) and these butterflies are in the majority of the US. After a week or so they chose the most appropriate time to come out....the one morning I actually worked early and I waited to check on them until I was trying to rush out the door!!!!

Luckily, their food is something I can cook....sugar and water. Aubrey helped me place the flowers in the tent and we put sugar water on the flowers. The butterflies were pretty quiet after all that work. We had to wait for the last one for another night and the following morning we let them go. All five catepillars made it to butterflies. Aubrey thought they were cool until they woke up a little and started flying around in the tent, then the sudden movement was NOT COOL. My hope is all survived...but I did see a couple excited birds fly by right after we let them go...