Butterflies and Caterpillars

We met some homeschooling friends at West Lynn Gardens this morning. This is a large and beautiful community Garden with a Butterfly House. Today the Butterfly house was full of Monarch Butterflies. They were feasting on the nectar in the flowers of the bush in the photos above. They swayed gently on their delicate legs as they drank. We haven't been to this garden since we had Isobella's fifth birthday there last year, so the girls were delighted to finally go again.  They got to watch one of the volunteers water the plants and talk about the butterflies, and they had a great time hunting chrysalises. It was lovely.

What those photos don't show you though is that the rest of the day went from bad to worse. By the time I finally got the girls into bed (at ten to ten this evening!) it had well and truly become "one of those days." It was hot and humid, which always makes me grumpy. The heat saps my energy and makes everything seem like hard work.  Paddy had to go to work tonight, and even though he did as much as he could to help me get dinner ready and clean up the kitchen before he left, I was not looking forward to feeding the kids and putting them to bed on my own. Sure, I do it often, but something about today made me feel a bit sorry for myself.

I tried really hard to start the evening off well. I lit the advent candles and put on our youtube Christmas playlist. We were all singing and the girls were dancing around the lounge to one of our new favourite carols; "In the Bleak Mid-Winter". (Thanks Melanie!) Greer especially loves it, and she was dancing with a blissful look on her face when she said to me "Oh I wish we could go to a church like this and then I could sing with a book like I was at a recital!" Priceless! (Follow the link and you'll see what I mean - the girls are fascinated with choir boys at the moment!)

Then I was outside bringing in the washing when Abigail flashed past me carrying something. I only registered enough to think "she's got something" and "I should know what that something is." But I had nearly finished bringing in the washing so I kept going. Next thing I heard a loud clatter and an almighty wail. I ran inside to find her standing in front of the open door of the freezer, a cereal bowl broken at her feet, and her big toe covered in blood. She was well and truly yelling.

Suffice to say that that was the point at which things seriously started to go down hill. And things proceeded to go down hill for the next two hours. The lowest point (or highest, depending on which way you look at it) was when Greer was in time out for the umpteenth time and yelling at the top of her voice "nobody loves me. Nobody loves me. Nobody loves me. That's it then. I'm moving out!"

By that time I'd got to the point where all I could do was laugh. Abigail, toe finally forgotten, was riding around on her trike, grinning and oblivious to the chaos, and Isobella, in true form, was taking half an hour to brush her hair. I had used that tone of voice which is the closest thing to yelling without actually yelling so many times that I was starting to get sick of the sound of it. And by then it was well after nine in the evening.

And then I remembered something the volunteer at the Butterfly House had said in passing this morning. "Big caterpillars make big and strong butterflies." I'd had that comment in the back of my mind all day. You see, I could say that today was about the heat, or about the busy-ness of Christmas, or about my general tiredness, but actually today was all about the season of life I am in. I could wish Paddy could move up to a shift where he didn't have to work strange hours, I could wish we had a flash new house with air-conditioning. I could wish my kids were older and put themselves to bed, or that Abigail wasn't at that age where I feel like my main role in life is to keep her alive. I could wish the house was tidier, that Greer was more compliant, or that the girls slept in separate bedrooms so that I could send them off for a quiet wind-down time alone in the evenings.

I could have spent all day and all evening wishing for a million things to be different, but that would have been wishing away the season of life I am in. Really, I'm just like one of those caterpillars at the Butterfly House. I'm itching to fly with every fibre of my being. I can't wait to start weaving that cocoon. I can hang upside down like I was born to do it... but I want to be a big strong butterfly, so I need to keep eating. We saw some fat caterpillars today. I mean, fat really is the word for it. They were gorgeous, and so enormous in comparison with the teeny tiny newly-hatched ones, that they looked completely different.

Today was average. I cried. I got fed-up. I was very ordinary. But I did a lot of eating. In fact, I'm sure I'm fatter now than I was when I woke up this morning. I'm becoming one fat caterpillar.