Catty

Typically, this is what people think of when they hear the word catty:

cat-ty

adj. cat-ti-er, cat-ti-est

1. subtly, cruel or malicious; spitelful: a catty remark

2. catlike; stealthy

But not at our house. Catty is our former caterpillar. The caterpillar my kids captured in their bug catcher late last summer because he was going to turn into a butterfly. He wrapped himself into a chrysalis and settled in for a time.

Then fall came, and there was no butterfly.

Winter was next and, well, you know.

I put the bug catcher in the garage for the winter. Our very.long.winter. Our very long, COLD, winter. The very long, cold winter that we all thought would never end.

(You get it, right?)

Once it was finally starting to warm up, the kids brought the bug catcher back out and sat it on the porch. I let them continue to believe that this pupa survived the winter and was still undergoing metamorphosis. I didn't want to break their little hearts by telling them that their caterpillar probably didn't survive for seven months outside in the cold.

But apparently the joke was on me.

Meet Catty.

Xander was outside playing one May afternoon and came running in shouting that Catty turned into a butterfly. It was a gorgeous butterfly at that. And the odd thing was that Xander had brought home a butterfly book that day for his reading homework.

The kids wanted to keep it, but we had to explain to them that it needed to be free, so we opened up the door and watched it for awhile.

Catty seemed to have trouble finding his way out, so Jason found a thick piece of mulch for him to hop up on and we brought him out of the bug catcher where he made his way down to the flower bed next to our lilac bush.

He stayed there for quite a bit, flapping his little wings. We thought he was learning to fly, but after a quick internet search I discovered it's how they dry off their wings after first emerging. And then he must have gotten tired of two little kids ogling him and breathing on him, and he flew away.

I hate being wrong, but I'm so glad my kids got to have faith in nature and see that some things are worth the wait.

Meet Mortimer

Sorry for the blurry picture, but this is was our new pet, Mortimer the Mantis.

The critters came out late this summer, but in full force, and for some reason we always seem to catch the ones that have a pre-existing condition. We caught a fabulous caterpillar one day, and the next morning when I went outside to take its picture it had already made itself a little cocoon.

A few days later Jason caught the kids a praying mantis. The closer I looked at it I realized it very much resembled the pregnant mantis we had last year that ended up laying eggs in the bug catcher. So when we went out to the bus stop the next morning and found Mortimer, we were able to convince Xander to let the female one go for the sake of the babies.

Mortimer was probably the biggest praying mantis I've ever seen. It made me think of the Orkin commercials where the giant pests come and greet the homeowners.
He was feisty, too. Not content with his sticks, grass or water that we provided, he would actually knock on the door. A day or so later we came outside and got excited because we found another mantis above the front door. Then we realized Mortimer was gone. He somehow got the door open, escaped, and got the door closed again. He was perched right there above the front door as if to taunt us. He would even look at us if we called his name.

Another caterpillar has since come along and he, too, has made a cocoon in our bug catcher. So we have two bug catchers side by side on the front porch that Jordis checks on every day. We did a little unit on caterpillars one day while Xander was at school and this was her craft.

She was pretty proud.

Before our trip

I didn't get a chance to post anything about our week before we went out of town. Last Sunday we took the kids to the 2nd Annual Softball Showdown for Autism. It was sponsored by one of the local news stations here and created by one of their anchors, Jerod Smalley, whose son has autism. Xander was hoping that Johnny DiLoretto would be there to represent the Channel 6/Fox 28 team, but he wasn't. He was happy to meet Jerod and eat a sno cone though.

Jordis was excited to meet Buck I Guy and get his autographed picture, even though I didn't find him to be too personable myself.

After the games Jason let the kids run bases with him.

A few days later I took the kids to a program at the park called Creepy Crawlies. They got to learn about different kinds of bugs, how many legs they all have, and then got a chance to catch some. The kids' friend Wes came to meet us there, but we were having trouble getting anyone but Jordis to participate.

And of course the kids put on a show for me as well. This week they actually let me take pictures and videos. They were in rare form.