Abi loved the caterpillar stage - they were her little pets, and she was pretty careful holding them. She would ride around on her tricycle in the kitchen with them holding on to her fingers - glad they have such sticky little feet - like velcro.
Now we have 4 chrysalis.
Two of them J-hooked on Saturday night, that was fun to see.
I read online that they'd change within 24 hours. They were still hooked in the morning, we left for church at 9, and when we came back at 12 we were surprised that they had both already changed into chrylasis - only 12 hours after hooking.
(Wes has mosquito bites on his face from sleeping on the trampoline on Friday night) Sunday night the 3rd one hooked, and we barely missed him shedding his skin - found him probably an hour after cause his chrysalis wasn't smooth yet like the first two - look at how pretty they look in their chrysalis - they look like little emerald ornaments, a pretty green with little gold jewels:
We knew our 4th caterpillar, the one we saw hatch on a Tuesday two weeks ago, would be changing on Tuesday, cause it's two weeks after they hatch that they change. So last night he was still spinning his silk pad, this morning he was hooked -
We didn't know what time he hooked, but assuming it was somewhere between midnight and 3, we started keeping watch. Melodie played her flute, did her hour of reading, and her Spanish all while sitting in front of the hooked caterpillar. She was done watching at 12, and I took over. The caterpillar wasn't just hanging anymore but looked like he was having contractions. We didn't want to miss our last chance and seeing this stage of the metamophosis, and since I was now really interested and amazed at the whole process, I kept close to the little guy to watch. At 1:30 I yelled for the kids "I think it's happening!"
He really seemed to be heaving or breathing hard, and straightened out from the J-hook slightly, and sure enough, then we saw "his brains" coming out.
Really amazing!
Wes was a little grossed out by it and thought it was kinda scary. The shed skin looked like a dead fly or spider.
So, 2 weeks was just the right amount of time for a pet for us. Kept the kids interested, and not too much of a mess to clean up. Of course now Abi is a little sad that her pets are gone and that they are just ornaments on a tree. Two more weeks until they emerge, we are excited to see that part, should be fun, and we know not to touch them when they come out. Any of you have milkweed in your yard? The patches in our neighborhood are a little sparse, so I'm trying to plant the left over plants we have and see if we can get some growing in our back yard. These butterflies should be the last ones to lay eggs this season, and those eggs will change into the butterflies that migrate south to California. We are just learning so much about caterpillars and butterflies this summer! Pretty fun.
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