The Very Hungry Caterpillar

One day I came home to find a jar filled with leaves, sticks and a very fat caterpillar.  My boys had spent the afternoon outside exploring and they came across the yellow and black creepy crawly.  Max was completely facinated with it so Dada taught him how to build the caterpillar a "house" in a jar.  I was impressed with Billy's initiative to turn it into a learning opportunity, but in the the back of my mind I was thinking that I didn't want it in the house and that it would probably just die in the jar, poor thing. 

They set it in the window and named it "Little Stinky Face" (after one of Max's favorite books).  Every morning Max would run to the window to look at it in the jar and Billy would report that it was still alive.  I didn't go near the jar.

One morning Billy noticed that it had spun a cocoon.  I couldn't believe it.  Now I was a little intrigued.  It was just a small cocoon that resembled a green pepper.  I thought it was probably just a moth or something, but after a little research we found out that it was a monarch!

I was now a little more accepting of the jar that had been living in my window for the past week.  Billy and Max continued to check it.  I loved seeing them both so excited about their science experiment.  It was definitely "their" thing.  

One morning about a week later Billy reported that the butterfly had "hatched!!!"  Max could barely sit still to eat his breakfast after this exciting announcement.  He wanted the butterfly "OUTTT!!!!", he kept telling me.  

So we went outside to say goodbye and good luck to Little Stinky Face as we watched him fly away... 

Butterflies became the subject of the day.  All day.  Max kept saying " 'flies bye bye??".  So we read The Hungrey Caterpillar a gazillion times and I dug out a butterfly cookie cutter for Max to use with his play dough.