Pat Short is Born Again

 
 
So, many of you have heard the story of Pat Short. He was the coveted monarch caterpillar that I wanted for my classroom. The first one we found became an instant fascination and love of Cayden's, so, of course, it became his. We kept going back to find just one more and then, low and behold, we did. One for him, one for me. He was completely accepting of this and seemed a little excited that I had my own now, too. Wouldn't you know that when we got home with the new caterpillar, we found that Cayden's had escaped....ugh...we looked EVERYWHERE. I knew it was just about to go into a chrysalis, but knew it would die without milkweed. The new caterpillar was much smaller and Cayden kept calling it a paterpillar (those of you who know C, know he has a hard time with those hard c's and g's...among a few other funny substitutions), so I asked him if he wanted to name him Pat for short and so came the name "Pat Short"--apparently he liked my idea! :) Pat Short went everywhere with us, down to camp, to daycare, over the grammy's, and he even took a trip to St. George to see Great Grammy! Well, a couple of days before Pat's "rebirth" so to speak, we found a monarch caterpillar drying his wings on the kitty litter box (of all places!). Our lost one found its way into a chrysalis under the lip of the box--gross! We set him free and then Cayden and his friends saw Pat turn into a caterpillar that Cayden said my "kids" wanted to see. Jeff (his childcare provider's husband) brought it over to school for my class to enjoy for the rest of the day. We let him dry his wings and sent him on his way to Mexico that evening. Every time I watch the lifecycle of a butterfly, it amazes me. This time was just a tad more amazing to watch my son just as intrigued and full of wonderment through the whole process...