It's been a minute since I had a very clear reminder that the universe will always pay me back for my moments of stupidity, but HELLO, KARMA! She paid me a lovely visit today.
It all started with a moment of kindness. Mila, like every human with an imagination and heart, is enchanted with butterflies. That has led to a ridiculous number of butterfly-friendly plants in the garden, including lots of places for the monarchs. That has worked, for what it's worth, and our back yard is pretty magical in July and August.
But, when it comes to Mila, "pretty magical" is not enough magical. Thus, I ordered a little butterfly hatching kit thing for her in a brief moment of kindness. It was way back when the weather was still right for adding butterflies to the world, a fact which was definitely confirmed just by walking outside. At that point we had 9 monarch caterpillars destroying plants. So, plenty of time.
I ordered the kit and the little enclosure was perfect. The caterpillars, though? They were most definitely not perfect. Somehow water had gotten into the container so there was fuzzy mold and muck and basically it wasn't happening. These things happen when you ship live animals, so I wasn't terribly bothered by the whole thing, but I did decide to wait until spring to get replacement caterpillars. I explained to Mila that the caterpillars were dead, we moved on with our lives, and all was well.
Hahahahahahahahalolznope. It wasn't well. I guess maybe it was a bad idea to just stick the whole thing back in the box and set it in the pile of construction stuff that's going on around here? It must have been a bad idea because days turned into weeks turned into months and, let's be real, I'm never going to finish the dang stairs. I have so little left to do, but we're running head first into Christmas, so I won't have time to look at it until January. So perhaps a stalled construction zone wasn't the best place for moldy dead caterpillars.
Oh, except, ummmmm ... they weren't dead. I don't even know what happened, but yesterday we opened the box and there were actual live butterflies scurrying around inside the very tiny bowl they arrived in as cocoons, I guess? Like, I know what a cocoon looks like and there weren't any in there. The caterpillers were definitely legged creatures that weren't moving, so I don't know. Maybe there were some I didn't see. Regardless, crammed into that tiny bowl were two live butterflies.
Which we clearly couldn't release because BRRRRRRRRRR. I guess it's supposed to be cold in Pittsburgh in November, but that doesn't mean I'm ready for it. The butterflies definitely weren't prepared for it.
So the butterflies were moved to the enclosure and we did what we could to set them up for a brief but happy life indoors. They are painted ladies, so they only get to deliver fluttery joy to the world for about two weeks. Given that they were trapped in a dark bowl without food or water for who knows how long, that probably shortens things.
Mila decided to make the most of her brief window of butterfly parenting by parking her butt right next to them and not moving. At all. For an entire day. DO YOU KNOW HOW GREAT OF A GIFT THAT IS? It truly was the best day in a long time because there was no destruction of chaos or mayhem in my house. So good. So very good.
And then Mila had to go to bed which led to Mila waking up which led to Mila realizing one of the butterflies had bitten the dust overnight. We can't be particularly said about all of that because, again, I AM AN IDIOT and caused the whole debacle. That means I probably deserve what came next.
Did I mention that Mila woke up at 5:00 am today? Because Mila woke up at 5:00 am today. She needed five hours to prepare for a party she was invited to attend, you see. She tried to fill those five hours with butterfly watching, but then one was dead and ZOMG THAT CHILD IS LOUD.
I didn't need to be up for any particular reason today, so I stayed up super late last night doing stuffs. I went to bed after 2:00 am. That means the 5:00 screeching and yelling about the dead butterfly was REALLY badly timed.
But that's karma, coming right back at me and paying me back for being an idiot.