Visitor

We have a little visitor at our house that showed up at the same time as the 100,000 cake I'm just polishing off right now. It's a caterpillar that my little one happened to notice on one of the oaks in our front yard while I was pitching the softball to big brother. Well, my husband didn't want it on the tree, siting a past caterpillar appearance that had single-handedly been responsible for stunting the growth of a backyard tree, and my little one wanted it as a pet.

So we placed it in a Trader Joe's ginger cookie container, poked in some air holes, tossed in some oak leaves, a little branch, and watched for a while. Well, the little bugger ate all the leaves and left a monstrous number of little brown acorn-like pellets all over the container. So the next day, we started again with new leaves and a fresh, tidy living space. The little guy was getting HUGE....

Well then he started spinning, and shrinking. And I was sort of in awe, because I've never witnessed any cocoon formation, so I kept checking in on the progress. Well then I started getting discouraged, wondering if our little guy was having trouble, would be able to manage the task of covering himself up in self-created sleeping bag. The webbing was getting spread all over the place, getting wadded up in balls, and it lacked efficiency. I couldn't tell if he even knew what he was doing. But last night, finally, it looked like maybe he was on the right track.



This morning I came out to check on him and he was totally covered. I was so proud... Now I suppose we'll wait for the transformation into moth (my husband assures me this is no butterfly caterpiller, but we shall see).

In other news, we are currently auditioning early reader chapter books for boys. We've exhausted Junie B. Jones and Mercy Watson and are trying to find something else with plenty of books in the series. My first grader loves working his way through lists... I checked out the first in The Zak Files series, The Time Warp Trio, and The Cam Jansen Mysteries. So far...inconclusive. Any suggestions would be delightful...