The other day I walked into my 3 year old’s bedroom and I saw this peeking out from under his beside his bed:
A Chinese takeaway container, with a little DIY ecosystem. UH OH.
I gave myself a facepalm and wondered what poor creature my son had tortured this time.
Turns out that he caught a green caterpillar.
He gathered some vegetable leaves from the garden… he found a bit of wood for it to climb on, a bit of bark for a “caterpillar bed” and he also found some “caterpillar toys” (a rock and a gum nut) which I thought was very sweet of him.
When I inspected the container, I saw that the caterpillar had eaten 2 bok choy leaves and 1 small lettuce leaf.
How did the story go again?
However my son had sealed the container, it was a very hot day and the caterpillar looked really sluggish.
(Pun intended)
I thought that it had died and stuck itself on the lid.
I scolded my 3 year old and gave him a lecture about not capturing creatures in airtight containers, NOT keeping creatures in the house and certainly NOT keeping them under his bed.
I growled at him and said we will have to bury it in the garden tomorrow afternoon.
However the next day, I found the caterpillar like this!
Whoa it’s a chrysalis!
Sigh, so now I feel all OBLIGED to keep the darn thing and give him a lesson about life cycles or something.
And guess what? My son is really excited to see the butterfly, all brightly coloured and with a big smiley face, just like in the book.
But I suspect that this caterpillar is just going to be a grey moth.
And I also suspect that I’m going to “have” to release it back into the wild, where it will no doubt lay eggs on my bok choy. Cycle of life indeed!
