J.J. was a good butterfly...

He started out as a sweet little caterpillar. Tommy's science project that he lovingly named J.J. Why J.J.? Who knows. All I know is that the last day of school before spring break, a cocoon chrysalis came home with Tommy. All he kept saying was it needed to go into another container--but he didn't know what kind of container or anything else, so it just stayed in it's cup.

One day during spring break Tommy brought the cup and chrysalis to me and showed me that it was black and he thought it looked dead. To be on the safe side he decided to hang on to it for a few more days just in case. Knowing nothing about these things (having foolishly called it a cocoon when he brought it home I had already shown my ignorance) I agreed that was smart and went on with my day. A couple of days later Tommy happened to peek into the cup and began shouting, "OH!! OH!! IT HATCH-ED! IT HATCH-ED!" (the emphasis was on the 'ed'). Sure enough there was J.J. live and in color.



Tommy was thrilled to no end!



Tommy's siblings, all having experienced the joy of butterfly hatching (in school mind you, not over spring break) instructed me that we needed to keep him her it in a container until it's wings were uncurled. (of course they waited to tell me that until after J.J. had already walked out of his cup) So we rummaged through the recycle bin and came up with this ziploc box/saran wrap combo which J.J. clearly loved:



We waited for his wings to completely uncurl, but I began to think he was like Willy the Whale in Free Willy and his time in captivity had permanently curled his wings. And then, alas, we found that time was not on our side. Either the heat was too much for J.J. in his little saran wrap incubator or he had some horrible butterfly disease...we'll never know for sure. J.J. did not make it to see the outside world and to feel the wind in his wings.

There was much sadness as we mourned the loss of our little friend. Tommy put him into a purple Easter egg "coffin" and he and Noah buried it in the back yard. I missed the graveside service, but I'm sure they said some nice words about him and his short little life. He was a good butterfly...