Rutabaga Dreams

The first butterfly, following the siren call of freedom

Four of the five butterflies are now out in the world. We tried to release them all on Friday since we were going away for the weekend and wouldn’t be able to feed them, but only two were ready to take flight. The other three decided the cage was a better place to be, so my brother kindly came and fed them on Saturday. It was a little sad to see them fly off. I had this completely irrational feeling that we shouldn’t have released them on Friday, since they only emerged the day before. They just seemed so young to be out in the world on their own! Yes, yes, completely silly, I know.

When we got home on Sunday evening, the remaining butterflies were doing well and two seemed perhaps ready to venture off into the great unknown. We held onto them until this morning and then set the cage outside to see if they were interested in going. Two of them took advantage of the opportunity, although one took quite a bit of time before she was ready to go! We still have one butterfly left, and she isn’t looking very good. I think she was damaged when one of the cats knocked the cage off the table because she has a crumpled wing and a bent antennae. Poor little thing, she tries to fly but can’t do anything more than twitch and flail at the bottom of the cage. I suppose she would make a nice dinner for a bird (after all, birds have to eat too!) but I’m not quite sure we’ll be able to bring ourselves to do that. Right now the butterfly is hanging in the kitchen, all alone. We’re going away this weekend too, so we’ll have to decide what to do with it soon. I wonder if my brother will be around this weekend…

Over the weekend we went up to my parent’s place in Tahoe. We had a very nice trip (although the trip back was long because they shut down Interstate 80 due to multiple accidents) and I thought I would share a few pictures from a hike we took. The snow has melted off quite a bit up there, and the water is roaring along in all the seasonal creeks. There’s still some snow left, and the meadows are only in their earliest stages of emerging from their winter blankets.

Here’s Matt, standing on the “trail” before we entered the meadows.

Here’s the first meadow, although it is more marsh than meadow right now!

The second, bigger meadow is a large shallow lake right now. Amazingly though, we could hear frogs in the water! I would have thought it would be a little cold for them, but I guess these are some very hearty frogs!

We did see some buttercups in the first meadow though, the only wildflowers we saw blooming. There were lots of other things coming up - I bet in a few more weeks there will be a profusion of flowers and mosquitos!

This is my parent’s dog - no she really isn’t howling. She was very pleased with herself for climbing up on that downed tree.

Oh, the guilt, the guilt! I went out to a mom’s club social thingy for the board this evening at seven. I left the restaurant at a little after 8:30, and on the way home I got a call from Matt, saying that Gregory was awake. I asked him why he didn’t call me earlier, but he said that he had been calling me since 7:30, and I just never picked up. I had the cell phone with me, hanging on the back of my chair, but I never heard it ring. *sigh* So poor Gregory was tired and hungry and fussy, and poor Matt had to try and keep him happy, while poor Emma had to try and entertain herself because Daddy couldn’t read to her or do anything except bounce Gregory. And it wasn’t even like I was having a good time - I only went because it was a board event, and I’m supposed to go to those since I’m on the board. I really don’t have anything in common with most of the people on the board, and I don’t even particularly like a few of them. The whole tone generally so negative - about their children, their spouses, whatever. I generally try to leave once they really get into the husband-bashing or the long discussions about TV shows I never watch. (It was the latter this time - they started going off about Desperate Housewives. Ick - not that I’ve seen it or anything, but still, ick.)

So yeah, now I feel really bad that I left my family in a lurch to do something I didn’t even care about at all, and didn’t even want to go to in the first place. I really wish I hadn’t signed on for another year on this board. Every time I have to do something with or for the club I start wondering if there is some way I could get out of it… *sigh* Only nine more months!

Gregory turned five months old a couple days ago, and it seems a little hard to believe how fast he’s growing up. These early months are going at a rapid clip! He’s working on his sitting up skills, and if he’s really interested in something right in front of him he can sit up, unsupported, for a minute or so. We can hand him things now, and he’ll play with them and chew on them. He can transfer things from one hand to the other, and he’s gotten rather adept at putting things in his mouth. He’s rolling over from back to front pretty regularly, but the front to back part is a little more challenging for him. He can do it, but it always seems like he didn’t quite realize how that could have happened. The back to front seems much more like a calculated attempt. He’s starting to get frustrated when he is trying to do something, but can’t. You can just tell that he wants to do so much more with his body, but it just isn’t cooperating with him. He was looking at a plastic truck about 8″ high and 12″ long the other day, and he desperately wanted to try tasting it. He just couldn’t get his arms to bring it to his mouth though, and he couldn’t get his body to lean over it enough that he could bring his mouth down on it. He sure tried though!

Here’s a couple pictures of our little cutie. Enjoy!

All five butterflies emerged from their chrysalids by early evening yesterday. Emma and Matt got to see the third one emerge, but I was up taking a shower so I missed it. We missed the last two emerging because we were at the homeschool park day. Oh well, they are still really neat to see. Now that they are moving about, the cats are finding them extremely interesting. One cat knocked the cage off the table (where we had it for easy observation) but thankfully all the butterflies survived. We hung the cage back up on its hook, but now it is much harder for Emma to see it. I feel bad for her, but I would like this little experiment to end better than the seed starting one… in that one we came downstairs one morning to find that a cat had eaten off all the first sets of true leaves on all plants except two. We put the plants outside to save them from the cats, and the slugs ate the remaining two the following night.

Here’s a picture of four of the five butterflies. They really are amazing! It is phenomenal to think that they were just little black caterpillars about a week ago. I also found it interesting that there was one caterpillar who took an extra day to form a chrysalid, but it was either the third or fourth to emerge. Oh, and in case anyone is wondering, these are painted lady butterflies. I hope I can get a picture of them with their wings open, but it is challenging to take pictures of them in the butterfly cage.

One of our butterflies emerged from her chrysalid this morning! We were upstairs when it happened, but we’re keeping a close eye on the other four. We’re really hoping we can watch a butterfly emerge today.

P.S. Don’t be alarmed by the red stuff, it is meconium from the butterfly. It contains left over pigment and tissue from the butterfly’s wing formation.

how a cat could pee in a cylindrical container approximately 9 inches tall and 4 inches wide?

And on a totally unrelated note, would anyone like a cat? (or two? or three?)

Ah, up again early this morning - yippee for me. *grin* It is nice to get up before the sun has really risen, when the air is still nice and cool and the birds are just beginning to sing. I really like doing my morning 10-15 minutes of yoga during that time. I started doing that short bit of yoga a couple weeks after Gregory was born and I think it has been really great for getting my muscles back into some semblance of shape after the pregnancy. I really like it as a muscular workout - interesting, challenging, and something I can do with minimal equipment. I’ve taken classes and done it with videos, but I find the music and the fluffy neo-whatever outlook (not sure what to call it - but the western interpretation of an amalgamation of eastern thought and spirituality) rather goofy and grating. I do have a book that I like though, and it has good pictures to follow as well as nice pointers on different poses. At this point, I’ve just come up with my own routine with my favorite poses and I find that’s the best solution for me. I did take a class recently because someone from my bookgroup was teaching it at a discount rate (she’s finishing up a nine month program for yoga instruction) and while enjoyed getting some correction on the parts where I’ve been slacking, I don’t think it is something I would want to do on a regular basis.

Well, Emma’s up so I probably should get off the computer and start seeing about breakfast. Today she has a busy day - my Mom is going to take her to see Peter Pan in SF. I’m a little jealous because I’d like to go (especially after reading Emma the Step-Up Classic version of the story this week!) but maybe I’ll get to go someday, and for now I’m sure Emma and my Mom will enjoy it. I think while she’s gone I’ll go over to my parent’s and do some gardening because I really need to get some seeds in the ground! I think I have everything I need to do this, now I just have to hope that it isn’t too hot today (high of 81 today, that’s not too bad) and Gregory is ok with being in the bouncy seat for awhile while I do this!

Ugh, why does it seem impossible to drag myself out of bed in the mornings? I’m not looking to get up at four in the morning here, I’d just like to get up at six-thirty or perhaps six instead of seven or eight. I’d like to get an earlier start on my day and have some time in the morning before the little ones wake up, but this seems impossible to do on a consistent basis! I’ve managed to change quite a few other habits and personal issues through determination and will power, but so far this one is eluding me. I do at least believe that it is possible, but I am finding it extremely challenging.

This morning I did manage wake up just before six, but then I had to nurse Gregory until about 6:10 so that he’d fall back asleep. My radio alarm went off at six, which was good because I could focus on that while nursing which helped me stay awake. I also kept the covers off which helped make sure I didn’t get too comfy again. I feel a bit groggy, but I’m happy that I did it. Generally the only time I’m not happy about getting up early is the exact moment I’m doing it… and if I don’t get up when I want to I regret it for the rest of the day. I remember reading somewhere a little while back something like, “the pain of personal sacrifice is less than the pain of regret” and that definitely strikes true to me.

I was remarking to Matt last night that I’d like an eject button on my bed… or perhaps my side of the bed could be set up like Wallace’s… although the whole getting dressed part always struck me as rather painful in his set-up. But seriously, it is something I want to do, and I’m trying very hard to do it. I read this a little while ago, and since it has a plan (and I am all about plans and systems *grin*) it has at least given me a place to start.

Ah, a quiet friday evening. The children have long since gone to bed, the house is reasonably is clean (although more cluttered than I’d like - but that seems impossible to conquer!), diapers are washing in preparation for being hung out to dry tomorrow morning, apple butter is cooking in the large crockpot and steel cut oats for tomorrow’s breakfast in the little crockpot. My fearless warrior husband is out doing battle with the slugs and earwigs.

I feel sort of silly making apple butter right now, but someone put in a split request for Granny Smith apples in the buying club this time around and I thought I would help out. It seems like apple butter should be a fall activity, not a spring-time one! Since these apples are from Washington, they must have been in cold storage since at least October. They still look and smell quite tasty, although we don’t really like to eat Granny Smith apples without doing something to them. I’m planning on cooking most, if not all of them - apple butter tonight/tomorrow and an apple pie on Saturday night or Sunday, and perhaps some applesauce next week. I bought 10 lbs (at 80 cents a pound, not bad for organic apples!) so I enough to make a few things, but not so many to be overwhelming.

At about 3 or 4 o’clock today I didn’t think today would turn out as nicely as it did. We had a good morning, except for the fact that Gregory didn’t want to nap. He also didn’t want to be put down, so he spent the better part of the morning in the sling. This was fine, but a little tiring, as I still decided I needed to do all my chores and such. He finally went down for a nap at 1, and Emma and I finally sat down to do our homeschool block. We usually do this during Gregory’s morning nap because if he’s awake he likes to squeal and screech when I read. This makes attentiveness pretty much impossible, so we generally only read when he’s asleep. I really hope this phase doesn’t last too long! Gregory woke up just as we were finishing at 1:40, so I went up to nurse him a bit more to see if he would sleep longer… and about an hour later Gregory and I both woke up. I had hoped to go over to my parent’s house to do some gardening and such, but it just didn’t seem like things were going my way that day as by that time I was groggy, tired, and just plain weary. I was annoyed to realize that I had planned on doing dinner in the crockpot, but neglected to actually start it when I was supposed to. I went up at about four to ask Matt if I could temporarily abdicate my position as Mommy, but he said that it wasn’t allowed and suggested that we go out for dinner. Neither of us really wanted to go somewhere with a fussy baby, but doing something different sounded like a good idea. Since I had to drop the check off at the buying club bookkeeper’s house Matt suggested that I could go to the store and get stuff for fajitas and chip and dip. When we got home Matt and I made a lovely dinner (well, Matt did most of it, I just made the guacamole) and we enjoyed it thoroughly. Really, I think it was much better than going out! It was like the situation had been reset, and everything was ok again. Being the Mommy was just what I wanted to be again. Thank goodness!