Caterpillar Babies

Paulette has been creating a butterfly garden at her church through the "Roots and Shoots" program. She gave us a milkweed plant with some caterpillars on it, five of them! Wowza! It's been fun watching them grow and change. They will change into monarch butterflies, so exciting!

May 11: Here's the first day, they are all so small and hard to find. I think I saw 3 this day. Notice how healthy the plant looks too!

May 15: They are getting a little bigger and easier to see just in a few days...

Here's the biggest one. He's checking out the other plants in the pot

There are 2 in this picture, one under the leaf and one closer to the top.

May 22: So then we went on vacation for a week! I was very worried about our little babies. I didn't want them to move on before I had a chance to see them. Paulette came over to water the plants and check on them. Over the week, they'd started moving onto the outside of the pot at times, but they have always made their way back so far.

Here are 3 in this picture, can you find them all?

Getting bigger!

Check out the KING! We were shocked with how big he got in a week! Just eating away!

May 25: Still getting bigger and moving all over the place. They are all bigger, but this one takes the cake! I had a dream that he got as big as a python, hopefully that doesn't happen!

May 26: Every time I go out to look at the caterpillars they are all eating. They are very sensitive to noises though. They seem to sense John coming, poor kid hasn't seen them in the act of eating yet. They just freeze and their antennae twitch every once in awhile. They can sense danger :) They are very soft and I wonder how much bigger they'll get before they move on to the next phase.

I think there are 3 again in this picture.

I've had a lot of fun watching them, but after making this post, I'm wondering if I should get a hobby :) Don't worry, I'll still keep you posted on their progress... I think John's hoping they'll turn into the Baby Einstein caterpillar!