A lesson in patience....

Now when you all see the title of this post I bet you are all thinking, "Uh, oh! Chan is coming to the end of a three week stretch without Jamy home, the kiddos must be driving her nuts and she is ready to pack it in!" Not so my friends. Actually, a beautiful thing happened at our house today that allowed me to teach the kiddos a quick lesson in how amazing the rewards for being patient can be.

The story starts last summer. As many of you know, Abby is notorious for being a mother hen. The kid will adopt anything, wrap it in a blanket, name it and proceed to love it, if not to death, at least to a place close to death. Last summer, we had all sorts of new adoptees at our house. A couple of slugs, a baby frog, many bugs, and lots and lots of catepillars. Abby kept coming home with so much stuff that I eventually bought her a little bug house where she could keep the critters for a day or so and watch them. Toward the end of the summer she caught four different catepillars. The very night she put them in her bug box they cocooned themselves up and that was that. We waited and watched and nothing ever happened. Summer turned into fall and fall into winter. Every week or so I would peek in there thinking that I ought to clean that bug box out. I never did, though, because I remembered some caterpillars take quite awhile to become whatever they are destined to become.

So today, we got home from our world travels and I started unpacking bags. I was putting some books away in Abby's room while the kids were playing. I happened to look down at that bug box and inside was the most beautiful luna moth. If you have never seen a luna moth you are really missing out. They are gorgeous! They are an incredible shade of soft green and so delicate. I put a picture of one on this post, but it doesn't really do them justice. The kids were over the top excited. Then tonight when I was putting them to bed I looked in there and a second one had come out! What a gift for the kiddos to be able to see such a beautiful transformation. We talked about how beautiful they are and how it was so much fun to wait all winter wondering what was in those little cocoons. Maybe, just maybe the kids picked up a little lesson in how beautiful things can come to you in life if you just have some belief and some patience.

So another really great memory was made tonight. I hope the kids hang onto it and everytime they see a luna moth as they grow up they get a warm feeling from their childhood.