Past Lives

My son has been here before.  He tells us all the time.  He recalls experiences and places he's been and we have no idea what he is talking about.  His favorite phrase is, 'not with you, this was before.'  He says a lot of things that throw us off.  I don’t recall a past life, but who knows?  I can't even remember what I ate for breakfast yesterday. 

So last night, we're watching Great Migrations on National Geographic channel.  It consisted of migratory patterns of the elephant seal, African elephants and monarch butterflies.  Being a California girl, as soon as I see the seals I'm psyched to watch it.  The star of the show though, is the monarch butterfly.  I see my son's eyes glaze over in boredom and to try to bring him back I go off tangent and talk about San Juan Capistrano and the birds that flock there every year.  Of course, he doesn't care.  In the middle of my saying how beautiful the mission is, he turns to me and says, "Do you know that Monarch butterflies are poisonous?" 

What the H-E-double hockey sticks?  I don't see any stingers.  They can't bite you.  What are they going to do, inject their poison into you with their antenna?  So I'm telling him he's full of shit and he's adamant that they're poisonous.  So of course, we head to the trusty computer to find out….he was right. 

http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/butterfly/species/Monarch.shtml


Monarch Butterfly--Danaus plexippus.  The Monarch is a common poisonous butterfly that eats poisonous milkweed in its larval stage and lays its eggs on the poisonous milkweed plant. The caterpillar's first meal is its own eggshell.  After that, Monarch caterpillars eat the poisonous milkweed leaves to incorporate the milkweed toxins into their bodies in order to poison their predators.

I should know better by now not to doubt the weird-o things my child says; he seems to know his stuff.  So yes, I still looked at him in disbelief and exclaimed, "Oh my goodness, you were right!"

He answered oh-so-humbly, "I told you so."