Butterflies in the garden.

The other day I was reading a book in our living room whilst Noah was outside playing, from where I was sitting I could peek around and check up on him intermittently. It was a beautifully warm and sunny day and the door was open to let the breeze through.

All of a sudden Noah gallops through the doorway with an excited smile on his face.
"Daddy daddy!"
"Yes mate?" I look up from my book.
"Bullaflies! Bullaflies! Bullaflies!" He exclaims excitedly, whilst pointing to the garden.

Noah loves butterflies, we have quite a lot of them around our area and he loves chasing the little white ones in our garden.

"Butterflies huh?" He nods again, a huge smile on his face.


"Why don't you try to catch one for daddy?" His smile widens at the challenge and he quickly turns and runs back off into the garden, hands back shoulders up neck down in a flying swooping motion.

I smile at Noah's understanding of the need for aerodynamics whilst catching butterflies and quickly go back to my book, just trying to finish the chapter off before Noah comes back, and then we can play.

A minute later Noah tramps through the door with a triumphant look on his face. I look up and see him smiling proudly. I see something in his hand.

My heart drops.

In his tightly curled hand are two white and yellow crumpled butterfly wings. I can see them right there in his hand, lifeless, fluttering a little in the breeze.

At this point I have two very conflicting emotions.

On the one hand, Im inexplicably full of pride. My son must have the reflexes of a ninja to catch a butterfly. After all, he's only 2 years old! Thoughts whir through my head, maybe he's a born superstar athlete with reactive skills like that(these thoughts are fairly common to any red blooded male.)I'll be his manager and we'll travel the world participation in only the most prestigious sporting events.

On the other hand, I feel a terrible lump in my stomach. There's a squished  bug inside the boys huge meat cleavers (something he gets from Marie's father!) And I told him to do it, and he's now killed a innocent little butterfly. The fact that he doesn't grasp that he's committed insecticide is also a little  unnerving.

"Come over here buddy. lets have a look." I say, hoping against hope that the little critter might still be alive and I can free him.

Noah trots merrily over to where I'm sitting. I kneel down and slowly open up his clamped fingers.

I stare dumbounded at the scene in noahs big palm.

The I laugh out loud. Look down again at his hand again and laugh some more.

Lying dead as a doornail in noahs cute little hand is a big bad flower.

Noah's lightning reflexes of a ninja has snared him a, albeit a very large, 'butterfly grass' flower.
Fair play to Noah, the flower is aptly named. Looking very much like a white butterfly.

By this time Noah's laughing too, soon enough we're both rolling around on the couch laughing hysterically, when one of us stops, we look at each other and start laughing again.
It quickly descends into a tickling session and we sit back gasping for air.

I pick up the flower from the floor and hold it up for both of us too see.
"Was it hard to catch?" I say with a smile.

He looks up at me with a cheeky grin and says "yeah."

He can still be a sports star if he wants to. I won't mind.

-Wes-
The Family Man.

P.S - Do you have any funny family stories? Post them in the comments below or email them to me and I'll do a collection of them.

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