We killed a caterpillar; or why we can't have pets

JED found a caterpillar. A teeny tiny one. I don't have photographs of when they first brought it home because it just did.not.occur.to.me.

Anyway, they wanted to keep it and make sure if became a butterfly. So I figured why not. After all, Muffin's perennial favourite book is still The Very Hungry Caterpillar and it seemed like an apt, post test- end of term experiment for them. And it was as short time and as unintrusive as pets came.

They were amazed at how fast the caterpillar grew and how much it ate. Muffin was wondering worriedly when it would get its tummy ache as the Very Hungry Caterpillar did. I was just amazed at how much it pooped.

Then one day it stopped eating, inched up one of the twigs that I had put into the container (thereby reminding me once again that I was in charge of the pet) and stayed still.

And that's how it stayed. And stayed.

We think it's died. That it didn't manage to metamorphise. And that was as far as it got.

Evan feels sorry for it because he always feels bad for anything that suffers. The other two seem to vacillate between hoping that it will emerge and not caring that it's died.

It reinforces my long term mantra of no pets. If we can't even keep a caterpillar long enough to help it become a butterfly, what more the other higher maintenance pets like fish? And like I said, the onus was on me to check if it was okay and to feel the loss of it because it's died.

I'm not traumatised but really, NO. MORE. PETS.