Butterfly

Today was a good day as for as mom-ness goes. I was super tired this morning, probably worn out from all the cleaning I did yesterday, and since I must brag I'll tell you that I sanitized the entire down stairs bathroom, washed all the doorknobs and shined them, wiped down the doors and hinges, sanitized all switches, cleaned the kitchen, did all the dishes, swept the tile and mopped it, dusted the furniture, did 2 loads of laundry, cooked 2 meals, took the kids AND the dogs on a walk, vacuumed and CLEANED the carpet! Not only that but my husband and I managed to watch Inception while both Micah and Isaac took a nap. Nice! So that was all yesterday, and needless to say I was wiped out from all that stuff. And then when you don't get a good night's sleep because a baby is waking you up all night, it kinda doesn't help.

So starting out feeling like an old hag, you would think today would have been very "blah". But it wasn't. The hubby came home and I got to shower, well actually I took a bath. Then Micah came to join me and get a bath. That was fun. I'll say it's a lot easier to wash your baby when you are in the tub. We played and floated him around and he seemed to like it. I wondered a little if the feeling of being in warm water would bring flashback memories of being in my belly. Then of course that led to other sad thoughts but I just let it pass on by.  So then we ran some errands, got Isaac some new shoes because his feet are growing. He wanted to try on hats at Old Navy because I put one on Micah. It was cute. Nice to be out as a family without having to worry too much about a crying baby (he never did) or RSV now that it's warmer.

So when we got home I unloaded Isaac and we came into the garage and right there on the rug was a gorgeous yellow butterfly. One of those big ones that everyone pictures when they think of a butterfly. I showed Isaac and first he goes to grab it but I pull him back to show him. He thought it was funny that it moved it's wings. He's never really seen a butterfly before...well seen one and realized what it was. You could tell it was still wet, like it had hatched from its cocoon in the garage somewhere and was airing out its wings.  Those big beautiful wings seemed foreign to the butterfly, as it fluttered one side and then the other. It then walked along the rug...probably used to doing so during those caterpillar days. It's really quite amazing that such a beautiful and delicate being can come from such a funky blob of fur and stubby legs.  I guess that can be used for a metephor for a lot of things in life.  I'll let you pick yours.

(not the actual butterfly but it looked kind of like this- more yellow) Darn. I should have taken a picture.

So I figured the garage probably wasn't the ideal starting point for this little guy's life, so Isaac and I found a piece of cardboard to urge him to crawl on to. We walked him out to the grass and I set the cardboard down and he walked off, wings flapping a little in the breeze. Hopefully this way the sun and breeze will help his wings dry off. Isaac had a set of huge rubber bugs that his Mymy gave him, one of which was a big yellow and black butterfly similar to the one we found. I brought it to him so he can associate them together, so that he knows a real butterfly is not a fake plasticky thing but something real, alive, and delicate.  Of course his 2 year old understanding of delicacy got about as far as attempting to wack the real butterfly with the fake one (don't worry, I saved him).  So we backed up a little and then waved good bye to Mr. Butterfly.  It was a sweet moment to watch my young son have a little bond with a butterfly, and to hear his sweet little voice say "bye bye bu-erfly". We shut the garage door and waved bye once more, Isaac wouldn't stop until the door was shut.

The cutest part I think, that touched my heart the most, was that he asked me two more times to go see the butterfly. Of course, I was sure that hours had gone by and butterfly must have gone by now, but we went out anyways. I'd rather him go see for himself and let me try to explain it then just let him keep wanting to see. Poor kid needed some closure. He looked around the grass for a little while and asked me where the "bu-erfly go?" I did my best to explain it, using my hands to be the butterfly flying a way. I don't think he got it so much as he just moved on to other things (laying in a bush). Such a cute little mind he has.

Hopefully we'll see more butterflies soon. 

(P.S. I am curious if we might have accidently stowed some butterfly cocoons from Japan, and that maybe this was a Japanese butterfly? Is that possible? It looked awfully familiar to the ones they had there. Hah.)