Praying Mantis Nymphs - An Update

I spend a lot of time watching my bugs lately -- the praying mantis nymphs. 

Over the past week or so, I released more into the yard and some have died off from what I think is just bad luck at birth. 

There was one that finally shriveled yesterday, for instance, that appeared misshapen, like a headless worm with legs. The five that remain in the terrarium are about an inch and a half long now and brown, some 21 days after they first oozed from the egg sac as tiny, almost translucent nymphs.

I bought wingless fruit flies online after a fruitless search of three area pet stores. They arrived on the doorstep in four plastic vials. I shook a few into the terrarium each day but after a week or so, they turned to into an especially gruesome whitish blueish type of worm. What the heck is that about? Can anyone enlighten me?

Without the tiny flies, I foraged the garden for food and found a most excellent food source on the leaves of my butterfly bush. A tiny red bug with black wings that I can easily shake into a glass jar, then dump into the terrarium. The nymphs devour them. I shook some in there this morning, though, and the nymphs barely moved toward them. A sign, I think, that I overfed them the day before. 

I still plan to release the bulk of the nymphs into the yard so that we're left with just one which we'll grow until it develops its wings. At this point, I think it's safe to say they'll all survive so I should probably just go ahead and select the one we'll keep. But I do enjoy watching them all together and despite all of your dire warnings, they still haven't started cannibalizing one another. 

In other news, I started writing a weekly home and garden column for Del Ray Patch. I wrote about nesting birds and the neighborhood home and garden tour. Go ahead and read them if you like. I'm enjoying the regular freelance work even more than I thought I would. 

I'm also having a hair crisis which I shall resolve this afternoon when I lop it all off again. Carry on. 

They have wings now

I cried today at preschool. I never cry about this kind of stuff and yet, there I was, seated in the front row on a tiny preschool-age chair with my knees at my chest and Tobias at my side, crying about a poem and song and two of my children moving on to a new stage of life. 

Several weeks ago, Josephine and Desmond came home from school talking about the caterpillars they planned to watch grow into butterflies. They drew in an observational journal and lectured me on chrysallis and rejoiced when the painted ladies broke free and spread their wings. 

Their teacher planned a Butterfly Release Party and for weeks at quiet time, Josephine sat behind her closed door and practiced a song in a low whisper: "Kindergarten here we come, here we come." She also practiced "Chim Chimney" from Mary Poppins and "Do-Re-Mi" from "The Sound of Music," both of which she performed at the Broadway-themed Spring Concert on Wednesday. But what about the kindergarten song? 

The kids gathered today in a half-circle in front of us - parents and siblings - and recited "The Caterpillar" by poet Christina Rosetti, then acted out the life cycle of a butterfly before they moved on to the last item of the program: End of School Poem and Song. 

I turned the camera to video mode and hit record. 

Here's what they said and sang: 

"We started out little just like the egg and we ate and we grew and we stretched our legs and we learned a lot as we went along: how to count, how to play, how to sing a song, how to write our letters, how to kick a ball, how to be very quiet in the hall.

So here we are and they'll be no crying, cause we got our wings and we're ready for flying up to...

Kindergarten here we come, here we come.

Kindergarten here we come, here we coooome.

So long preschool, it's been fun.

Kindergarten here we come, HERE WE COME!"

And I cried because I'm so proud of them, so awed by their dramatic growth this past year. I had a conversation with Desmond last weekend about the Civil War and something he read in an impossibly long, complicated book one afternoon by himself. And I watched him write a letter to his teacher tonight when he could barely write his name at the start of the school year. Josephine stood outside the door to the classroom today as families arrived and handed out "Butterfly Party" programs with art designed by her. 

They have grown from eggs. They ate and grew and learned so much it blows my mind. Of course, they have wings. Of course, they're ready to fly. Watch out kindergarten, here they come! 

And now I'm crying again.

A Big Weekend for Firsts

A lot of big firsts this past weekend -- Tobias went halfway across the monkey bars and Esme rode her bike with her hands over her head. But the most momentous of them all: 

Esme celebrated her First Holy Communion with both her godparents in attendance. She wore the veil I wore 33 years ago when I made my first communion at St. Edwards the Confessor Catholic Church. And, for the first time since she received it, she wore the necklace her Aunt Dawn gave her at her baptism.

See that smile, the one with the fresh tooth missing? It didn't leave her face the entire day.

Coraleen

It turns out, if you shake a heavenly bamboo bush at dusk, a cloud of bitty winged bugs flies toward the sky. 

I know this because I'm desperate to feed a dozen hungry praying mantis nymphs. What I don't know is why I have a dozen hungry praying mantis nymphs because the idea was to save only a handful from the sea of nymphs that spilled from the egg sac last week. But as I started to separate them the other day, I found I couldn't part with them all. 

This past week, a Mama robin built a nest on our porch on the top of a corner column in the small space beneath the ceiling. Other birds, not robins, have built nests in the same spot in years past but the nests have always come down in strong winds or storms. Based on experience, I should have used a broom to pull this nest down as soon as she started. But I didn't. And for the past few days, the Mama has been roosting with little respite. She stays seated even when I go to the porch. 

Every night, I lay in the same spot on the couch and watch shitty TV to numb the day's chaos. I can see the robin from my spot. Today, I stood on the arms of the rocking chair and cleaned the window so I'd have a better view. 

It strikes me that the fawning over the praying mantis nymphs and going to ridiculous lengths to feed them (do you know how hard it is to catch tiny, transparent bugs in flight?) is related to my affection for the robin. 

It's most definitely not baby lust. I wrote a few months ago that I am settled with our family. I do find it staggering how quickly the children grow and there are moments when I'm nostalgic for them as babies (like when I found Esme's newborn hat buried in a drawer), but I love where we are now and, as I said, I'm excited about where we're going. 

I settled on another idea: perhaps it's that I love growing things. The mantids, the robin eggs, my flowers, our garden. I wondered, has it always been this way? I don't think so. It was never so essential as it is now. It's curious, don't you think?

In other news, Josephine told me she wants to name her praying mantis Coraleen. It strikes me that would make a great name for our robin. 

The Hatching

Imagine, if you will, you're my across-the-street neighbor, standing on your front porch as your three kids play and suddenly there's a scream from my house so loud, so sustained you hear it like a train whistle despite closed doors and windows. 

"Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah!"

Over and over and over. 

You'd wonder what became of me and the kids, right? I'm certain you'd never guess. 

Lately, the day to day with the children has bordered on unbearable. Tobias hit an intense phase marked by repeated tantrums and a dour outlook, classic 3 and a half, as one friend described it. Josephine upped her stubborn quotient and challenges every rule, disputes most requests and harumphs her displeasure.

Then Esme came down with strep. 

So, we were out for fresh air yesterday to clear our heads, stretch our legs and run some of the bad mood off but the bad moods and misbehavior chased us home. I was so ticked off when we finally burst through the front door that I made the kids a glass of water each and walked straight to the basement to fold clothes (but mostly to get away from them). 

I wasn't there long when Esme shouted from the top of the steps: "The praying mantis! The praying mantis."

Three weeks ago, when I bought the package of ladybugs to release in the yard, I also bought a praying mantis egg case filled with what the online retailer told me was 200-300 praying mantis eggs. We put it in a borrowed terrarium and placed it on the dining room table - voila, an insect centerpiece - then, we waited. 

Different web sites told me the eggs needed a few continuous weeks of warm weather to hatch, but we didn't know what to expect. I moved the terrarium back and forth between the table and buffet at mealtime so many times that I rather forgot to wonder about when the eggs might hatch.

Until they did. 

I ran upstairs to see why Esme was shouting, and then promptly started shouting myself. Like a ninny, it must be said. The praying mantis nymphs were oozing from the egg case in such a ghastly mass of translucent foam that I couldn't control myself. It was like watching transparent meat with black eyeballs spill from a meat grinder. 

It was fascinating, sure, but for several minutes I couldn't get past how gruesome it looked. And I couldn't stop screaming (while simultaneously scolding myself internally). It was like the time a mouse ran through our front room and I stood on the chair and hyperventilated. Total nonsense, yet totally incapable of slapping myself into silence. 

Of course, I did eventually gain my composure and I took the terrarium to the front porch with the kids following closely and put it on the picnic table for us all to marvel. 

The nymphs quickly unfurled themselves, found their footing and flitted about the terrarium as more oozed from the case and joined them. My across-the-street neighbor and her children joined us too. (She likened my screaming to a woman who drinks daintily from a tea cup. Indeed.) 

Within 30 minutes, the egg case was empty and the nymphs ready to start their life cycle. I was warned by many, many friends to watch out, praying mantis are ruthless predators and will set upon one another quickly. So, we took the terrarium to the back yard and let some of them crawl into the garden. 

The plan was always to cull the mantids down to a handful of hardy ones so that we can eventually select one strong mantid to grow to adulthood. The others would be released to the garden where they can fend for themselves and hopefully feast on bad pests that we could otherwise do without. 

But the nymphs seemed content to hang out in the terrarium, so I brought it in for the night with upwards of 50 still in there. I turned out the light at midnight and wondered what I'd find in the morning. 

Well, I found them all mostly as they'd been the night before, only noticeably bigger and darker. As the morning wore on, they seemed to grow more feisty too (but, as of dusk, they still haven't started to devour each other). I had 100 things to do this morning but after I finished the most pressing, I sat with my nose to the terrarium and watched, spellbound. 

A sampling of my morning tweets: 

I can already tell this is going to be a project that consumes me. So, prepare for praying mantis stories galore. I promise I won't scream.