This was the post I wanted to put up a month ago when my computer crashed. By the time we got it fixed I had a million activities to catch up on. So this was back a month ago, before it started to slowly get scorching hot outside.
We have a bird feeder hanging on one of our back trees which brings quite a few birds every day. Mostly fenches, doves, the occasional pigeon or blackbird, and once in a while a cardinal will grace us with his presence. Well, Kaitlyn got really determined one afternoon and decided she was going to catch a bird.
I had already rallied the remainder of the troops and gotten them inside but agreed to give Kaitlyn extra time. It was hilarious. I kept watching her out the window. She was standing about 10 feet away from the tree, looking for stealth hiding places so she would not lose the element of the surprise. She mainly just waited in various hiding places for about 30 minutes. She even stood once behind the trunk of a tree, thinking the 4" diameter trunk would conceal her 6" thick body. It was so funny! Then about once every 5 minutes I would see her take off like lightning with her butterfly net, waving it violently through the air, chasing after one unsuspecting bird, only to no avail. I finally convinced her to come in.
About a week after that, she began catching bugs. Ladybugs at first. The poor bugs don't stand a chance though. Even though Kaitlyn means them no harm, she cannot find it within herself to let them go. She puts them in a plastic cup and feeds them but there is no water. We did give her some ideas for air but even we don't have any good ideas for water. Plus, let's face it. Bugs just weren't meant to live in a plastic cup. But she doesn't want to let them go. She says they are her pets (and then gives me a teary, sobby "I don't have a pet..." line).
Nearly every day for the last 2 weeks she has come home from school with old empty bubble containers with some sort of creepy crawly creature inside. I'm getting rather tired of it. And if I convince her to put it outside, it ultimately either dies or gets away, and then she let's me have it for causing it.
So Mike took them camping a few weeks ago and when she came home she was ecstatic because she had collected "1700" roly poly bugs! Unfortunately, the bugs must have gone into shock. We later found them, their cup bloweth over and there were about 100 dead roly polies on the patio.
Here are just a few of them. I couldn't get any further away or you wouldn't have been able to see them.
So I think for her birthday I'm going to get her some kind of bug home so the bug homicide rate at my house will dramatically decrease. But that's still 6 weeks away. But I can't just run out and buy her something every time I turn around. What am I teaching her? But if I don't how many bugs will be sacrificed? Internal conflict. At least she's not afraid of bugs though! She wants to be a "bug expert!" More power to ya, sista! She can be like Grissom on CSI, querks and all!
Wow, maybe she'll be one of those bug scientists! It's kinda cool that she's so into it. My boys LOVE bugs and they'll often capture something and then watch it with a magnifying glass. But they've also been known to come into the house, grab the salt shaker and run outdoors...then when I finally go outside I see all kinds of dead snails on the lawn.
ReplyDeleteYour play structure looks so nice and clean. We have a similar one but the tarp on the top is all shredded from wind damage and we never sealed the wood so it's this ugly faded color now.