A Caterpillar Tale

A few weeks ago, Wyatt caught a caterpillar.

He faithfully fed him fresh leaves each day.

And eventually he named him Walkey.

"Why Walkey?" I asked him one day

He thought it over and gave me a great answer:

"Because he has so many legs."

I thought each day about letting him go. But Wyatt was really treasuring taking care of something he fully had responsibility over. He sought out this creature for his bug kit - and now had the privilege to care for him.

Walkey remained in the bug kit, eating (as the jagged-edged leaves gave away) and seemingly...happy.

One day I asked Wyatt how Walkey was doing

"Oh. He's a cocoon."

Perplexed, I asked more about that when Wyatt brought his bug kit over to me and sure enough, that little creature had buried himself under a leaf and indeed, the beginnings of a cocoon was revealed. Bits of a cotton like substance was on top of the leaf and under it.

Well, we watched and watched. Each day I'd ask Wyatt how our little Walkey was doing.

"He's still a cocoon today."

We placed his little home near our dinner table so that we would not miss his big performance, metamorphosis, transformation!

2 weeks went by. I thought about googling several times to see how much time a cocoon needed.

This morning Wyatt was checking on Walkey and sure enough...

a brown little moth had stepped outside of the "cocooned-leaf".

We all sort of just watched him. He wasn't moving. Almost as if he was catching his breath before his journey continued.

Wes took the top of his container off and said that we should put him outside for when he takes his first flight.

Wyatt grinned and said.

"I'm going to change his name."

"To what?" Wes and I asked

"Flappey. That's his new name."

A few hours later I went outside to check on him.

Flappey was gone.