Butterfly House... and Oh My Goodness!

After a rough week, I thought it would be fun to take the kids out to do something fun again. I'd read an article in the Toledo Parent publication about a Butterfly House in Whitehouse. Will had been very interested in the caterpillars we'd spotted outside recently, so we read a few childrens books on caterpillars, chrysalides and butterflies and decided to pay this place a visit. The couple who opened it also have a Christmas Tree farm across the street and a giant corn maze cut to the design of Toledo's new hockey team - the Walleyes. The couple is very passionate about their projects and want to bring fun, family opportunities to the community. Upon arrival, we met Duke, the owner, and became very aware of how genuinely kind he is and how he truly wants everyone to have a good time there.

He offerred to take our picture a couple times outside before we entered the Butterfly House and before we sat down on a dew-covered bench, he insisted on sitting there himself and scooting across it to dry it with his own jeans so we wouldn't get wet. :) Then later, he gave Will a free coloring book and crayons from the gift shop and was extremely helpful to us with an incident that I will mention later.






Inside the gift shop, they have a beautiful mosaic tile image of a butterfly on the floor...

...as well as all-things-butterfly available for purchase:

The room where all the butterflies live is like a gorgeous (& humid!) greenhouse with lots of plants and pretty flowers, benches to sit and watch, enchanting music playing softly, fish in a small pond, and lots of beautiful butterflies.

They leave plates out with bananas on them to attract the butterflies.

Many of the butterflies had brown on the outside of their wings when they were closed. But you can see the brilliant blue color on the inside when they were floating around.













You have to be very careful where you step and sit down! See the flash of blue by Will's left foot?




Butterflies may even land on the guests (they especially like hairsprayed hair). Sophie and grandma got a special, surprise landing on grandma's hair!






Looking at the many colors and types of butterflies.

A fluttery friend checking out our jackets.



We DID have a nice time there, but it sort of seemed that both Will and Sophie were trying to sabotage the whole outing (just kidding). Sophie spit up a lot, which is not terribly unusual for her - she has good days and spitty days. Will was not listening well and was misbehaving left and right. He was running when I told him to walk, he was whining and trying to get into everything, and he was just being a stinker. Sophie also had a blowout diaper, after which I changed her clothes... followed by a 2nd blowout diaper. I then headed out to change her again and had only been in the bathroom a couple minutes when my mom entered holding a crying Will with her hand up to his forehead and blood everywhere. He had tried to run after me shortly after I left with Sophie and tripped and split his head open on the paver stones on the floor. He didn't catch it on anything sharp, just split wide open from blunt force. He actually didn't cry all that long, just whined and wanted to be held. Duke and his wife got a first aid kit (Duke also happens to be a physical therapist) and helped us clean the wound and apply some vaseline and apply a small butterfly bandage (ironic, huh?). The bleeding stopped pretty quickly and we left with an ice pack and a request from Duke to please let him know how it went. I called Craig and we decided to have Kelly take a look first to see if it warrented stitches. She didn't think so and instructed Craig to go home and clean it and apply a more heavy duty make-shift butterfly bandage with medical tape.

Here's the wound before the bandage. Will was really tired and being a trooper about it.



Daddy cleaned the wound and bandaged Will up really well.



Oh my goodness! What a week! We need a mental health day after the stress we've had to deal with. Please, no more accidents. And maybe next spring we'll have to return to the butterfly house for another, less chaotic, visit.