Should Be Called Flutterby's

Having perused a lot of butterfly guides in recent history, I have concluded that all the really colorful ones are in Asia or the jungle. I like to show the boys cool bugs in the wild, but figuring I wasn't likely to get a chance to take them to Japan to see butterflies, I did the next best thing. I took them to the Krohn's Conservatory Butterfly Show in Cincinnati. If you think that taking two small children to see lots of fragile insects in a greenhouse during the hotest part of a June afternoon is a bad idea... phooey on you.

The first nifty thing about this trip was that I discovered a whole new part of Cincinnati that I never knew was there. How could I have lived in Cincinnati for as long as I did without discovering Eden Park!? It has a gigantic tower thingie the purpose of which I never really did figure and a scenic overlook from which you can see the whole Kentucky side of the Ohio River and a ginormous fountain and all kinds of fun places to wander. If a person is not averse to 700% humidity, the sky is the limit.

   

Krohn's Conservatory itself is open all year long: a free jungle paradise complete with a waterfall, turtles, and fairy houses. The fairy houses provided a fun opportunity for me to lie to a small child.

Me: Charlie, look: fairy houses!

Charlie: Are there real fairies in them?

Me: Sure! They're not here now because they're really shy and they hide when people are around.

Charlie: Where do they hide!?

Me: Under leaves and stuff.

Charlie *looking under all the tropical bushes*: I want to find them!

Me: Well, they're really fast too, and they zoom away before you can lift up the leaf.

Charlie: Why!? Do they think I'm gonna eat 'em?

Me *relenting*: I was just kidding, honey. There's no real fairies.

Charlie: Mom, were you teasin' me! That's mean!

There goes my mom-of-the-year award.

Anyway, this year's butteflies were from Japan, so the first room of the butterfly show contained no actual butterflies but, in a move designed to mistify small children, lots of little, tiny trees. Here's a picture of Charlie, not with flowers sprouting out of his head, but in front of a flowering bonsai. The expression on his face clearly communicates, "Mom, quit taking my picture with the little trees. I want to see butterflies already." Okay, okay, so into the butterfly room we go...

Our nature walks have been paying off. Charlie shows off his first passenger of the day, and his ability to be gentle with delicate creatures. The kids were allowed to pick the butterflies up on silk flowers provided by the show, but in this case, Charlie rescued this seemingly-injured fellow from the floor. Of course, then he wanted to keep it.

There were about 15-20 varieties of butterflies at the show. Some were more camera-shy than others. As you can see by the blurring in the photo there, this butterfly was saying, "I am a flower in the wind! These are not wings, they're quivering petals! Stop looking at me!" The striped one below page left practically posed for me, whereas the Morphos wouldn't sit still with their wings open. That awesome red, black, and yellow one was illusive, but I got him at last. Mwahahahaha... Ahem... anyway....

Did you know that what most people call a Monarch butterfly is actually a Viceroy? Where's Chancellor Palpatine? This is an actual Monarch butterfly:

Okay, I won't subject you to a species identification of every one of these. They were just pretty.

This little fella liked me so much he climbed up my leg to sit on me. He's lucky he didn't get squished because he tickled my ankle and I had one of those ack! reactions and almost slugged him...

Eventually, we got sweaty and hot and decided to visit the rainforest portion of the Conservatory to cool off. I'm only being a little bit facetious. Out there they had what I really hope was a bench and not a scupture because I told my kids to sit on it.

Then some obliging woman offered to take my picture with the boys by the waterfall. What she didn't know is that I'm the one who takes all the pictures for a reason. Hey, you'd look like that too if you'd just finished making two small boys look and not touch the butterflies for an hour and a half in a greenhouse room in June. See how we're color coordinated so that we know what group we belong to? I think I'm going to keep that idea from now on...

After we left the butterfly show, we had a picnic by a giant fountain called the Mirror Pool. This fountain is 1/3 mile around, and no, I didn't have enough sense not to walk all the way around it carrying a cooler with two small boys. But I did have enough sense not to let them climb in it, so maybe only their feet will fall off... There was a sign by the pool that said something about skating only when the flags are up. I feel a January day trip is in my future...