Week 3: Bugs

 

Here’s a not-so-surprising confession. I don’t like creepy crawly things. I was a tomboy as a kid and didn’t mind them (except spiders), but I remember a distinct moment in my childhood when I was climbing a tree and I saw what I thought was a leaf crawl away.  Maybe it’a because I was betrayed by the leaf. Maybe it was my coming of age moment. Either way, I became less carefree with critters.

All that being said, I put on my big girl pants this week and played with creepy-crawlies (from a distance).

Day 1: Make it Monday

Ollie loves caterpillars so he was excited when I told him we were making some.

The goal:

This was a multi-step process and I had Ollie do all of them. He drew leaves, cut them out, and glued pom-poms on to the the leaves. His favorite part was gluing eyes to go on the caterpillars.

Want to practice self-control? Try watching a three year-old do a craft. This one kept us entertained for a good while. 

Day 2: Take a Trip Tuesday

There’s a honey farm in Canyon I was looking forward to taking Ollie; unfortunately, you have to be at least seven years-old to go on a tour. Instead, we went to the botanical gardens. 

Last week, I talked about how I couldn’t find any drink umbrellas even though I see them all the time. This week was the same thing with bug catchers. I went to three different stores before I found one at Hobby Lobby. 

I’m so glad it took us all afternoon because Aaron was able to join us after work. 

Mainly I was happy because it’s always more fun when we’re all together, but also I didn’t have to be brave when it came to catching bugs. 

Ollie called the catcher a “snapper” and he loved snapping the bugs.

It has been rainy so there were tons of snails. We also saw roly-polies, spiders, mosquitoes, bees, and dragon flies. 

Ollie predictability loved this. He got to be outside and manipulate an object. 

Water Wednesday 

Today’s activity kept Ollie busy for a solid 45 minutes. Aaron found toys at Walmart that involve digging bugs out of sand, and they fit my requirement for the bugs not looking too realistic.

Several months ago, we had to take some of our gutters down to fix the eaves that were sagging. I have yet to put them back up. Procrastination comes in handy, sometimes. 

We sang “the itsy-bitsy spider” and substituted spider with whatever insect we washed down the drain. 

Thinking Thursday

I really wasn’t looking forward to this one, but we made a worm farm . We went around the yard and collected sand, dirt, and grass to layer.

Ollie liked putting the dirt in, but he thought the sand was too wet. 

Aaron bought some bait worms from Walmart. Thank goodness, because I did not want to go digging around for worms myself. I think Ollie’s favorite part was finding worms from the bucket and putting the them in. He wanted me to help him find them but I declined that offer. 

Scrumptious Saturday 

Because I couldn’t get enough worms this week, we made gummy worms. 

I hate how realistic they look. We used straws as molds and I was honestly expecting them to not turn out because I wasn’t sure how we would get the worms out of the molds. 

All it took was some good squeezing and they came right out. Ollie worked really hard at it, but didn’t quite master squeezing it out. He got frustrated that he couldn’t get them to come out in one piece. 

I really admire his determination because he kept trying and trying. The worms weren’t flavored enough for me, but Ollie and Aaron liked them. 

Ollie had a lot of fun with this week. Obviously it’s not my favorite, but I understand my role as a boy mom and having to tolerate creepy crawlies sometime. If Harper is as much of a tomboy as I was as a kid I may never be done with it.