Baby Butterfly

A baby has been born in our midst! Not the one in my womb, the one in my kitchen- a monarch butterfly.

This morning it must have hatched from its chrysalis when we were still asleep. Last night we stood in awe, the wings of the butterfly fully visible through the transparent chrysalis. Little did we know what we'd awake to find.

Trina Paulus gave us this monarch caterpillar. Twenty years ago, she wrote the famous book, Hope for the Flowers a tale for adolescents and adults alike, about caterpillars, life, revolution, and so much more. To this day, her home in Montclair is a home for these fabulous creatures- monarchs. When Jamie comes home from work, we plan on bringing our new friend back to Trina's yard on Elm Street- a monarch sanctuary where it can mate and lay its eggs on one of the many milkweed plants that grow. It is a female monarch, with her characteristic thick black stripes. Males have thin black stripes and two black dots on the bottoms of each lower wing.
The reason the chrysalis is suspended by a thread on a hook in our kitchen is that it fell from its silk string that it spun. Why? Because I was fooling with it out of concern for the position it suspended itself in, I was worried that it wouldn't have sufficient room in the plastic container to form its wings and unhatch unless it was hanging from the top rather than the side. But I was wrong, I've read that it could've grown and hatched fine in the position it put itself in. So it fell because of me and I followed some instructions I found online to suspend it from a thread, and I thought the hook in our kitchen looked like a good spot for it. It's been fun having it hang in such a random spot.

The butterfly has flown, I was there when it took flight from the chrysalis after hanging on it for a while. It was cool to have it perch on my hand a few times, too. I'd love to keep her, and perhaps find her a mating partner and milkweed to lay eggs on. But I've got another baby that's due to arrive soon.