On a bike ride a couple weeks ago my daughter and I found a small Monarch caterpillar on some milkweed. She decided to take him home and raise him as her own.

We kept a chart on his daily progress and gave him fresh milkweed to eat.

She named him "Alex" after her cousin.

Yesterday we noticed that the pupa he made had become translucent and we could see the wing color. We knew he could hatch at any moment. We decided to do our school work in the dining room so we wouldn't miss it.

Luckily, we were able to observe the moment of hatching and the unfolding of the wings!

Today we let him go. We took the habitat outside and She put her finger inside for Alex to climb on. He did! She brought him out and he didn't even fly away. She gently put him onto one of our dahlias. He sat there for a while and She put her finger back underneath him to see if she could pick him up again. I can't believe he let her! After sitting on her finger a few moments, he took off and we watched him fly away. I told Her that it was because he was used to her face, voice and smell that he was calm when she picked him up. She felt like a little mama.