Collecting

Over the weekend, we took a super long walk to enjoy the weather and look for pretty things in our city neighborhood where we sometimes forget things can be pretty at all.  That's when the search for empty cicada shells began, and I think it will continue as long as we hear them singing outside.  It really does feel like a treasure hunt, except that what you're collecting looks like a crusty alien life form with it's brain split open.  To each his own, right?
At the end of our walk that day, we stumbled upon a newly emerged cicada with it's body and wings still bright green.  A few hours later Chloe and Evan talked Todd into going back out with them to get the empty shell that was left behind (which he did).  They love collecting these things!

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We thought what had happened that day was pretty great, but then yesterday the kids collected even more shells. Once again, toward the end of our walk, something amazing happened.  Chloe discovered a nymph that hadn't emerged yet but was still living!  This thing had to come home with us.

Last night, way past bedtime, with our new little friend safely harbored in our bug habitat, it emerged and we got to see almost every step of it.  Wings unfurling slowly, body parts stretching, abdomen emerging at last from the exoskeleton remains.  It was perfectly beautiful.

Just amazing.

This morning, since the cicada's wings were fully hardened and darker, the kids admired and handled  it for a bit and then released it into our backyard where it took off flying.  Even as I am typing the kids are getting shoes on and begging to go out collecting yet again....  Who knows what we'll find next.