The girls found a caterpillar outside and begged me to let them keep it as their "pet." As an allergic Mom, who will never allow a cat or dog in the house, a caterpillar seemed like a pretty harmless way to let them have a pet.
They named him Steve Shortlegs and made a habitat for him. They didn't know what to feed him, so JJ suggested sugar water. They made a little sugar water trough for him and also put dropperfuls of sugar water around the bottom of his "house" for good measure. They also put a few leaves in there for him.
JJ and I went on an errand and while we were out we got a phone call from Montana:
Montana: "Mom? Can I talk to JJ?"
Montana: "JJ? I have some bad news. The caterpillar is dead!"
JJ: "No, Montana, he's just sleeping. O.K. Bye"
When we got home, we checked on Steve Shortlegs and sure enough, he looked pretty dead. He was just sitting there in a pile of his poop. JJ remembered that in school she learned that caterpillars breathe through their bodies. We thought maybe he had drown in all the sugar water. So the girls cleaned out the tank, put the caterpillar on the cement outside, and pretty soon Steve Shortlegs was moving around.
The girls were ecstatic! They couldn't believe their eyes. "He's the luckiest caterpillar in the whole world!", they said. They got busy making him a new habitat (without the sugar water everywhere.)
At some point, they decided Steve was a girl and renamed him Sara Shortlegs. She kept them busy most of the day! Thank you Sara Shortlegs!!
Yeah! I got through! I hate that I haven't been able to leave comments!
ReplyDeleteI love this post! I'm so glad Steve/Sara lived! I hate pet death. It's almost sadder than human death. Okay, not really, but it's still sad.