From about this time last year…
A bright spring morning and Jacqui greeted me with even more than her usual enthusiasm…
“Mom! I finded somethin’ when I was playin’ in da backyard yesti-day!”
“Oh, really? What did you find?”
“A crista-list!!”
“A what?”
“I said, Uh…CRIS…DA…LIST!! It’s kinda like another name for a kuhtoon, Mom.”
“Oh, You mean a chrysalis? A cocoon?”
“Dat’s wat I said. You needta pay datenshun wen peeple’s talkin’, Mommy.”
“I was paying attention. How do you know what a chrysalis is?”
“Oh, Mom. Most evvybuddy knows dat.”
“Huh. Interesting… ”
“Yes, dat’s wat I say - ‘innerestin!’ Soooo… I peeked in it!”
“You what?”
“Mooooooommm! You needta lissen! I said, I…PEEKED… IN…SIDE…DA…CRIS….DA…LIST!!”
“You did? What was inside?”
Her shoulders drooped and she shrugged in disappointment, “Dere was no budderfly innit.”
“There wasn’t?”
“Nope. I looked and I looked, and I think-ded, ‘Where’s da budderfly?’ I think-ded like dis ‘THINK, THINK, THINK’ like Pooh does (tapping her forehead), but I jess didn’t find her ennywhere. She’s jess missin’ I guess.”
“Was there a caterpillar inside?”
“Nope. Just green squishy stuff.”
“Oh dear.”
“Wat you mean when you say dat, ‘Oh dear?’ ”
“I think the green squishy stuff is your caterpillar. That is, it was your caterpillar before you peeked inside.”
“WHAT??? Who squished my caterpillar Mom?!!?”
My little future entomologist…
parenting children motherhood kids humor butterfly outdoors funny SAHM
What a wonderful, funny vignette.
May 1st, 2008 at 8:13 pm
She is so cute.
May 1st, 2008 at 8:24 pm
I absolutely love the way she forges ahead with big words and her quirky pronunciations. I’m bursing with pride!
May 1st, 2008 at 8:30 pm
I love these little Jacqui stories. Thanks for sharing that one!
Peace - D
May 1st, 2008 at 8:42 pm
did you post that last year? I sort of remember it somehow. hmmmmm…..
love it. She is a gem.
May 1st, 2008 at 11:10 pm
Yep, Corey - This is a re-post back from when I had like three readers. You were one of my very first readers
May 1st, 2008 at 11:24 pm
Okay. This simply made my day.
May 1st, 2008 at 11:24 pm
I loved my entomology class in college! How cute!
May 2nd, 2008 at 12:31 am
Very cute - I can just hear Jacqui speak through your stories.
May 2nd, 2008 at 1:46 am
Oh no! Poor caterpillar!
May 2nd, 2008 at 3:13 am
Cool. Tonight we bought M one of those Butterfly Kits where you send away for the caterpillars. She is so excited. Waiting to get them in the mail will no doubt drive me insane.
J is so smart!
May 2nd, 2008 at 4:33 am
Oh no! That poor caterpillar! :-)
May 2nd, 2008 at 4:51 am
Ew! Hopefully next time, it won’t be so squishy.
May 2nd, 2008 at 3:54 pm
Oh, how sweet, I’m so glad that you didn’t explain any more as I’m sure that she would have been heart broken. How on earth does she know what a chrysalis is? What amazing knowledge children pick up.
May 2nd, 2008 at 4:05 pm
LOL! That’s great! She already knows what a chrysalis is!! What a doll!
May 2nd, 2008 at 7:14 pm
Oh, this reminds me of the almost magical moment I had with my daughter and her cousins. We happened upon a dragonfly emerging from it’s nymph body to spread its new adult wings. We watched as its old body cracked down the middle, and as it crawled from it to the top of the log, and as it slowly started to fill its wings with wing juice, and then… and then… well then my niece went to sit closer to it and squished it with her hand. Gross. Sad and gross.
May 2nd, 2008 at 8:58 pm
Olivia and I enjoy reading your archives and came across this Jacqui tale a while back. (There aren’t many blogs where I take the time to do that.) Enjoyed it then AND now!
Tell her to look at a pic I just posted to see what it would have been! We look for monarch caterpillars in milk weed and hatch them. Sadly, we’re too busy this year to do it.
May 3rd, 2008 at 1:51 am
Love it! I love kid-speak.
May 3rd, 2008 at 3:14 am
Noah and I just had a similar conversation last week. Not nearly as cute as “Jacqui-talk” though. I am quite sure I never knew what a chrysalis was but it seems that all the kids nowadays know. I guess “cocoon” isn’t politically correct anymore.
May 4th, 2008 at 2:39 am
I love me a Jacqui story. Makes my heart smile.
May 4th, 2008 at 5:16 am
She is so darling yet dangerous…haha
I’ve never met her yet her presence makes me smile.
Jen
May 4th, 2008 at 5:13 pm
Oh yuck!
I remember the first time I had ever learned of a chrysalis. I was taught by my 5 yr old! My oldest Jeremy came home from kindergarten talking about chrysalises (sp?), and I had no idea what he was talking about. He bagan telling me, “Mommy, caterpillers go through a metamorphasis in a crysalis and become butterflies.” I said, “You mean a cacoon.” And he quickly corrected me telling me “no mommy, not a cacoon, it is called a chrysalis.” The next day, when I brought him to school, the teacher had to give me a lesson, too! Kids get smarter and smarter every generation! Of course Jacqui has a jump on the rest of them since her mom is a dictionary addict, right?
May 5th, 2008 at 12:31 pm
Oh that’s a hard one to explain! I love your Jacqui stories though - she is such a little character.
May 5th, 2008 at 5:11 pm
That was precious.
And you take dictation very well.
May 6th, 2008 at 10:36 pm