The Butterfly Effect

No, not the movie - or the metaphor (yea Ray Bradbury) for Chaos Theory.  But, well, a little like both, actually.  Or not...

A few weeks ago Elie brought home a butterfly.  At school they found caterpillars and put them in containers with plants...and...stuff.  Um, I'm no bug guy, so you'll have to take my word for it - or ask Elie.  Anyway, when Elie's butterfly came out of the chrysalis, it only had three wings.  She couldn't release it to fly away - since it couldn't fly - so she "got to bring it home."  She fed it mashed up watermelon and tried to nurture it but, well, you know how this story will end.  It died a couple days later.  Elie did okay with that.  But we couldn't just throw it away.  We had to bury it.  Thankfully, she didn't want a full funeral - but she put up a cross made of sticks where her first dead pet is buried.

I was mowing the other day and I almost mowed it - but I didn't.  I carefully went around it.  Why?  Well, it matters to Elie - so it matters to me.  Too many times what the kids want is of less importance to me than what I want.  And now I'm trying to change that.

That's my butterfly effect.

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