Bye Bye, Butterflies!

All Emory wanted for her birthday was the Butterfly Garden she kept seeing commercials for on TV. Of course Daddy wasn’t gonna disappoint his little girl, so he made sure she got what she wanted!

We received our caterpillars in the mail and watched them spin their ca-ca-coons. Once they were in their cocoons, we transferred them to the mesh cage and let them sleep for a few days. Each morning Emory would come downstairs for breakfast and ask, “Are da butterflies ‘wake yet?!?!”.

Our butterfly garden traveled to the beach with us, and sure enough while we were there they became butterflies! We watched four beautiful butterflies emerge and Emory made sure to name each one: Buddy, Ricky, Benson and Gla-gla. {Emory is in that stage where she loves to talk like a baby, so when she named the fourth butterfly we thought she was just being silly, but she consistently called it Gla-gla. So strange!}

After feeding and observing our new pets for about a week, it was time to release them. {In the backyard wearing our jammies, of course.} Emory had to do a little coaxing to get each butterfly out of the cage… And as soon as one would fly out, Emory tried to catch it again! We think Gla-gla {the last one to emerge from his cocoon} might have had a little trouble getting his wings to work. He didn’t seem to want to leave his comfy Butterfly Garden home, so we lifted him out on the paper plate. Emory made sure Baby Brother got a good look at Gla-gla.Then we set him down on the grass and watched him for a while. He didn’t fly away, but instead just sat right where he was put. We gave him a little more to eat {in the way of a sugar water drenched ball of tissue paper…yum} and left him alone. Just a few minutes later he was off and flying.    The paperwork says it’s common to see the butterflies hang out in the area they were released for a week or so, but we’re not counting on it.

Emory learned all about butterflies in school last year, so this was a fun little “project” to get to see it all happen first hand. We’ll most definitely order another set of caterpillars and do it again sometime soon.

For now, we’re just hoping our little flying friends found cozy new homes! Bye bye Buddy, Ricky, Benson and Gla-gla!!