Friday, May 6, 2011

The Very Hungry Caterpillar

Earlier this week Molly and I met up with Emily and her mother Katrine at Happy Hollow. It was a lovely day and the girls were having loads of fun. We were hanging out in the Redwood Lookout play area while the girls took turns going down the slide. After they both came down I noticed that Emily stopped to look at something on the slide. I go over to take a closer look at it's a caterpillar. A cute fuzzy little caterpillar inching his way across the bottom of the slide. I also happened to be wearing my Eric Carle Google t-shirt so I pointed out the caterpillar on my shirt so the girls could make the connection to the book they were so familiar with.

At this point a few other kids have taken interest and the caterpillar has made its way about halfway across the slide. I glance up a couple times to make sure no one is coming down the slide. Everyone is simply watching the cute and fuzzy caterpillar make it's journey across that green slide.

Then WHAM!

Out of nowhere Molly's plastic Tangled toy comes flying into view and no more caterpillar.

Well, no more caterpillar body. The fuzzy little head was still on the slide while the rest of its body had been reduced to a mere smear.

I glance up to make sure none of the kids are about to burst into tears. I then look over at Katrine and as soon as we look at each other we both have to turn away because we're both about to lose it. One last look up at Emily and she simply asks me, "Where did the caterpillar go?"

I try to tell her the caterpillar went bye-bye, but I am fighting back tears of laughter and don't really trust my voice. I quickly run over to get a wipe to take care of the remains. Molly has already moved on at this point as she is clearly no longer interested in the caterpillar. However, Emily is still standing in the same spot as she knows to her very core something wrong just transpired.

Luckily the rest of the kids have moved on and I don't have to explain to any of them what just happened. I ask Molly why she decided to get rid of the caterpillar and she simply shrugs and inspects her Tangled toy to make sure I wiped away all of the remains.

Later that evening I tell this story to N. His eyes get wide and he lets out an audible gasp when I get to the WHAM! This, of course, sends me into a fit of hysterical laughter. Apparently "you had to be there" applies if you want to find the funny in this story.

While I'm at Muay Thai N texts me the following:

Molly informs me that she "smacked" a caterpillar for being bad. I said, "What did he do?" ... "He was on the green slide!"

At least she had a reason?

2 comments:

Mama Bree said...

yeesh! I had the same reaction as N. guess you had to be there...

Kim said...

The whole thing reminded me of Bambi Meets Godzilla (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FDXt8arBdw).