The Girl Who Loves Critters...

My Bean has always loved bugs (maybe because it was the theme of her nursery room but who knows), reptiles and amphibians. She has never been afraid to get close to them or pick them up. She has always had a thirst to know every fact about each and every one she comes across.

Bean when she was 3 & 1/2 years

Bean after a butterfly seminar at age 5

Bean reading one her most favorite fact books just
a few weeks ago

We have received caterpillars in the mail and watch them turn into butterflies. We have made houses for crickets out of Barbie & Littlest Pet Shop accessories. I (yes, I) have caught a small garden snake (and yes, I screamed like a crazy person the entire time) and put it in her plastic bug habitat for an hour for her to "observe and take notes". My husband has caught blue tailed skinks (a small lizard that are a plenty around our house) for her to keep for an afternoon here or there. I really thought we had done just about everything until two Fridays ago...

This is when my husband and Bean decided it would be a good idea to build a car out of Legos and capture a Stink Bug to drive it. There was a big plastic windshield that kept him inside and there was plenty of room and air circulating through. The one piece I missed (which was incredibly important), was that Bean was worried he would starve so they put a small piece of apple in with the bug. So, for a week, Bean checked on her hard working Stink Bug behind the wheel of the Lego car until finally I said we needed to let it go and get the Legos broken down before the field hockey party.

This is when what I usually think is so cute about Bean loving every critter turned into disliking it VERY much. I picked up the Lego car and a part of it broke off...releasing a thousand fruit flies. I was freaking out! I was set to have a party in just a bit over 24 hours. I was asking myself out loud why the fruit flies were after a Stink Bug and that is when Bean told me that they had slipped in the apple so the Stink Bug wouldn't starve to death or thirst.

So, I ran outside with the ones that wouldn't leave the apple stuck in the cargo area of the Lego car, caught as many as I could between my hands (I know, totally gross!) and got to work on setting up for the party. It didn't seem so bad until the late end of the party when they started circling us like buzzards. As soon as everyone left, I set up another one of my Fruit Fly Traps and got rid of all of those party crashers!

All of those black things are fruit flies...YUCK!

This is the wreckage of the Lego car soaking
in disinfectant

Here I am a few days later finding the story of Bean slipping in that apple to take care of a fellow critter a lot more heartwarming and even quite funny! Which is exactly the way I should be feeling.

Do you have any caring for critters stories to share?