Wings

We had an exciting event at our house this morning, a journey that began about 10 days ago left the ground today, and took flight. Ten days ago, Erin excitedly ran into the house with her newest pet discovery, a monarch caterpillar. We fixed a jar with leaves, a stick, and some water, hoping to keep the little guy alive until he made his cocoon. We expected it to take a while, but overnight, he started into the process. David saw him wiggling around while hanging from the lid of the jar, but didn't think much about it. When we checked later, the little green, pepper-esque chrysalis hung by a thread from the lid of the jar. Erin was pretty excited, and we continued to check it over the course of the next 9 days. Last night, David and I were inspecting it, and noticed it had changed color, and that we could actually see the beautiful wing pattern through the walls of the chrysalis. This morning, Avery came downstairs and was cold, so I picked her up, and she exclaimed "I see a tatterpillar! A tatterpillar!" She pointed to the jar on top of the bookshelf, and I saw the beautiful creature hanging from the lid, completely unwrapped from the blue cocoon.

I sent Avery upstairs to get Daddy and Erin, and we all quickly dressed and hurried outside to release the amazing orange and black masterpiece.

The butterfly was a bit nervous to fly, so we just let him spread his wings a bit, and get his bearings. He crawled on David's finger and Erin's arm (until she couldn't handle the tickling anymore), and then David set him on some leaves so he could choose his own flight schedule.

We all came in to eat breakfast, and Erin hurried back out to watch him. Half an hour later, she came bursting into the house with the exciting news of the first flight of her monarch. It was an exhilarating morning at the Rahija house! One of God's huge miracles wrapped in a small package!