Bug Hunt!

I'm a self-proclaimed girlie girl. And proud of it! I love pink, sparkles, jewels, glitter, high heels, lipstick, and all things feminine.

As a little girl, I was always playing dress up. My Halloween costumes were princesses and brides - not superheroes or animals. My fifth bithday party was a tea party, and everyone had to wear hats and gloves. I was nearly sent home from school in sixth grade for wearing makeup. And as a senior in high school, I once went a month without wearing pants to school - only dresses and skirts.

I hate dirt. I don't like mud. I'm not much for the outdoors and I definitely don't do bugs.

But when you're a Mom of two boys, you have to make some compromises. You have to get a little dirty. You have to get a little rough. And you have to....wait for it...embrace the bugs.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, yours truly went on a bug hunt the other day. And I've got the pictures to prove it.

It all started a week or two ago when we found a cricket resting on a brick planter in our backyard. We pointed it out to MJ and he was enthralled. He spent a long time exploring the bug and he wanted to visit it for the rest of the afternoon. That night he even wanted to say goodnight to the bug before bed. It was pretty cute.

So, when MJ was hanging around looking bored the other day, I decided it was time to start a new tradition. A bug hunt.

"MJ," I said. "Do you want to go find some bugs?"

"Yeah," he quipped back and ran off like a shot.

We looked for bugs in these flowers first.  But we didn't see any.

Here's MJ faithfully examining the ground near the flowers. As we looked I said, "Where are you bug?" which MJ began to copy and repeat over and over again. It was adorable to watch him run around the yard saying, "Where are you bug?"

But there weren't any bugs in the flowers. Maybe there were some in the trees?

Success! We found a few beetles crawling in the bark of the trees. Here is MJ examining them.

Where there is smoke, there is fire. We knew there had to be more bugs hiding in the trees. So, I showed him how to use a stick to move the bark and needles to find them.

Next, we headed to the rose garden. I knew there would be aphids on the roses because we haven't treated them yet. Sure enough, there were.

Look, Mommy! Bugs!

MJ was serious about exploring them. We looked at how they crawled, how small they were, and their little wings.

 He even tried touching a few. But the thorns discouraged that pretty quickly.

Once the fun of the aphids wore off, we went in search of bigger creepy crawlies. I told MJ that bugs like to hide in dark places, like under rocks, and showed him how to turn them over to search for scattering insects.

Here he is upending the old, broken tiles around our backyard to see if any beetles or bugs are hiding underneath. Sometimes we found little tiny wormy like bugs, sometimes we found beetles, and sometimes we found nothing.

A bug! A bug!

It was great fun, even for this pink wearing, sparkle loving Mommy. After all, one of the great gifts of being a mother is seeing the world through your child's eyes. And that view is especially fun and unique when you have a son. It's a new childhood fully apart from your own girlhood, and we're both discovering it for the first time.

How fun is that?

As an added bonus, this little beauty of an activity took us an entire afternoon. And MJ didn't once ask to go inside and watch TV. Now if that's not a perfect reason to get a little dirt under my fingernails, I don't know what is!