One of the types of plants residing in our backyard is a caterpillar's veritable feast. And feast they do. Soon after planting our flower beds we discovered caterpillars galore! They move slowly it would seem but devour every single leaf in mere days. They quickly grow from the tiniest almost unnoticeable little inchwormy caterpillars to giant squishy overstuffed monster caterpillars. And then... they stay!
They drag their grotesquely obese caterpillar selves to our deck and find a place to reside for the next weeks. Close observation last week showed that once an ideal (or in my opinion sometimes less than ideal) location is determined they attached their rears to that spot, hang upside down, and slowly pulsate. It was mesmerizing.
Our deck is frequently covered in chrysalises. Bright green, golden speckled, goo containing chrysalises.
And then the butterflies emerge. And stretch their new wings. And fly.
Sometimes they come back home to say hello. But for the most part we are their nest, and a
bird butterfly has to leave the nest someday.
Very hungry caterpillars transforming into butterflies. Miracles occur in this nest everywhere I look.
Nils has two new teeth! Fangs, in fact. They are adorable and just in time for Halloween. What a sweetie.
Nils had his first official playdate when his friend came to play just with Nils. Carolena was at school and the babies got to play together without the tyranny of their older sisters. They had a blast and, as per the usual with these two, spent an enormous amount of time trading pacifiers.
Nils is growing and growing. With all of the crawling and tasting inanimate objects,he appears to be stretching out. My sweet Stay Puft Marshmallow Man better not lose those arm rolls before Friday. He has a costume to don!
Carolena's school carnival was on Saturday. Nils was feeling under the weather so the boys stayed home for football and naps while the girls headed to school. Not surprisingly, she had a blast.
She spent an amazing amount of time glancing around looking for friends and familiar faces. As soon as she found a girl in her class, she was off! I think she'd imagined I would hand her a roll of tickets and tell her to meet me at home later. In fact, I
know that's what she thought was going to happen because she told me. Fern gets to do that in Charlotte's Web, so, duh. Luckily, the other girl was also part of a mother/daughter duo so we stuck with them and let the girls do activities on their own.
It was awesome to see Carolena at the carnival. Glancing over my shoulder as she slurped a blue snocone and looked for a friend, riding a pony, chatting with teachers. Everyone seemed to know Carolena. What was once my newborn girl trying to lift her head from my chest in the hospital and see what else was happening is now the girl about whom other moms say, "Oh
this is Carolena! We hear so much about her at home!"
Very hungry caterpillars transforming into butterflies.
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