A Butterfly in Pennsylvania

While on our recent vacation to visit family in Pennsylvania we had the most extraordinary thing happen. My mother-in-law found some really cool caterpillars on the dill plants in her garden. I had just bought a bug catcher for Kiersten who is three so we put the caterpillars and some dill in and decided to keep them for a day to watch them eat. The amazing thing was that overnight they had formed their chrysalises inside the pink bug catcher.
The girls were fascinated to see the change and we immediately went online and started to research what kind of butterflies they would become and how long it would take them to go through their metamorphosis. We learned that they were Black Swallowtail butterflies and that it would take 9 to 11 days for them to change. One of the best parts of our vacation became the daily check on the caterpillars. Kiersten would make sure they were still in their container and talk to them with words of encouragement. She and her sister would make sure that they weren’t too hot or too cold and that they were safe from other critters. After about ten days I was in another room when I heard a scream from the porch where we had the bug catcher. The butterflies had emerged! We immediately took them outside and Kiersten held each one and placed it on a flower. After a few minutes they all took flight and went on to live their lives.

Kiersten has told everyone about “her” butterflies. Just goes to show you that sometimes the only thing that kids need to make them happy is a little bit of time and a connection to something other than themselves.