It rained last week. And while most people around town were looking out the window missing all the great sunny weather we have had recently, Caedmon and I took the opportunity to make the most out of a rainy day! :) We definitely received a few strange looks from the neighbors, but I'm not sure if it was just because we were outside on a wet/chilly day... or because I allowed my 2 year old to play in the middle of the street (clearly that's where the biggest puddle was!)... or because an adult was jumping up and down as hard as she could to make the biggest splash possible, or maybe it was because Caedmon only had a tutu bathing suit on under her raincoat... whatever the reason was, we didn't care, cause we both had A LOT of fun! and now we can't wait for another rainy day!

A little over a week ago I was outside weeding my flower bed and I found a green little chrysalis attached to a dead leaf/stem pretty much laying completely on the ground. I decided to bring it inside to see if it would actually hatch into something... I had no idea if it was a butterfly or a moth or what, but I figured it would be fun for caedmon to watch the process every day. She didn't really care about the whole science part, but I did get her to say the word 'chrysalis' a few times.

Throughout the week, anytime we saw a butterfly outside, she would say, "Look mommy, the butterfly grew!!" So I knew she understood that our chrysalis would grow into an actual butterfly! Well, after doing a bit of research online I found out that our chrysalis appeared to be an american painted lady butterfly! I was pretty excited that we might actually get a beautiful orange butterfly (if all went well...)

I continued to read a few things about what the process would look like so we would be ready to watch the butterfly hatch from the chrysalis. I saw somewhere that the day before the butterfly was ready to break out of the chrysalis that it would be very transclucent and you could practically see the wings of the butterfly through the "skin" of the chrysalis... We kept the chrysalis on the windowsill in our "office/music/craft" room clipped to a tupperware container so it could hang vertically and Caedmon & I checked on the butterfly often every day. After about 4 days it never looked any different from when I found it. (There were several moments when I thought that it was probably damaged and would never actually turn into a butterfly...)

Yesterday before we went to bed it still looked pretty green (still the same as when i found it) so i figured we were still several days away from the big hatch... I snapped a quick picture of it, and hoped that we would get to take pics of the further stages of brownish, and then clearish before actually getting a butterfly...

Well Caedmon & I were out of the house running errands all day today (it was the only day that we hadn't had a chance to check on it!) and this evening after Russ got home from work, he went to get his mandolin out of the room where we kept the chrysalis and he said, "DIXI!! Come here quick!" I had no idea what was going on, but I ran in to find a big orange butterfly on the windowsill! We called Caedmon in there, and she LOVED seeing the beautiful butterfly! I was so happy to see that it actually hatched, but I was a little disappointed that we missed watching it hatch from the chrysalis! Of course, Caedmon didn't care one bit that we missed it, she was too busy watching the butterfly learn how to use his wings!

It was a really fun little moment for all of us, and I am so happy we were able to watch and talk about the whole process with Caedmon! 

 

P.S. While I was putting the pictures on the computer, I asked Caedmon if she wanted to name the butterfly... at first she named it Russ, but then she changed it to Angelina... :)

Russ plays in a little bluegrass band with some friends of ours, so Caedmon gets to experience some great music at home... This is her latest favorite.