The Easter Bunny brought Cam caterpillars.

He was excited but I may have been more excited because after reading the reviews, I learned it would only take a total of 2 weeks for them to grow, go into their chrysalises and come out as butterflies. It also sounded like it was foolproof–you just keep them in their container and wait for things to happen.

Well, we got home from our egg hunt and Cam was sitting on the arm of the couch looking at his caterpillars. We were discussing where we should put them so that they’d be comfortable and safe. A place where we could watch them, but that Demi wouldn’t be able to reach.

Just then, Cam fell off the arm of the couch head first, smashing his face on the floor and crushing… no… obliterating the caterpillar habitat. I yelled for Joe, made sure Cam was okay and then immediately began picking up the plastic shards and frantically trying to locate the tiny caterpillars.

Meanwhile, Cam was crying because his hand was bleeding, which made Demi cry, which made Mila howl and amidst all the confusion we only recovered 3 of the 5 caterpillars.

We re-created the habitat with a mason jar and a coffee filter and hoped for the best.

In the end, it was a really cool process to watch. The caterpillars grew extremely fast, then one by one they attached themselves to the coffee filter lid and went into their chrysalises. One week later, the first one began to emerge and we tortured the poor thing as he warmed up and started testing out his wings. The next two came out 2 days later.

Three of five ain’t bad?