Spoiler Alert! Do not read this entry until you have read the previous entry posted earlier today.

I almost forgot the best part of the caterpillar adventure. Knowing that excessive handling and affection may have contributed to "Erika's" untimely demise, Caroline enthusiastically proclaimed upon our collection of aforementioned very hungry caterpillars "I WON'T LOVE THEM!" We stared at her quizzically for a moment and she grinned a sparkly grin and said "If I don't love on them so much, they can LIVE!"

Oh my! Caroline is such a cutey.

I do have a problem with your story. I just do not, I repeat, do not understand how caterpillars can escape the bug box if you are using the one I gave you. How? How? How, I ask, is this happening? Are they teensy? Are they skinny? Are you not shutting the lid? Is the box defective? What is going on????

If the cats are eating too much you might consider letting Caroline "love" on a good many of them and only spare a few for the whole metamorphizing thing. Just a thought...

I'm with Leslie. How do caterpillars escape a box designed to keep them in? This sounds like another household item winning the war on the Clemmons family.