This week in Camp Sweatshop, we learn about the life cycle of a butterfly and about stealing songs without a current copyright to appropriate to different lyrics for our own purposes. And what better place to do that, than a butterfly house? Well, for the butterfly part, the song lyric part can be found in any Barney and Friends episode.

I never knew places like this existed until a few years ago when I saw my very first butterfly house in Hershey Park. We have one near and it's usually fun and exciting to take the girls there, but I always come out with some sort of neck injury from whipping my head around to watch because I'm afraid one of them is going to catch, step on, or otherwise dismember a rare butterfly. This time I took The KingofHearts along for good measure. It's much easier to watch two girls with four eyes.

When The Caterpillar was in preschool, she learned this song:

(sung to the tune of Up On The Housetop)

First comes a butterfly that lays an egg
Out pops a caterpillar with many legs
Oh, see the caterpillar spin and spin
A little chrysalis to sleep in
Oh, oh, oh, look and see
Oh, oh, oh, look and see
Out from the chrysalis, my, oh, my
Out comes a pretty butterfly.

That's pretty much all you need to rely on when giving out valuable butterfly information. Well, that, and the difference between a butterfly and a moth. Thank heavens for interweb. The only other thing you need is some good visual aides.

The chrysalises were hung by the chimney with care.

Monarch butterflies emerging from their chrysalises. We actually watched the one on the left pop out. I don't think I've ever witnessed that before. I was more impressed than the kids.

This guy was one color from the top...

...and another from underneath.

This particular house has butterflies from all over the world, so they are especially diligent about making sure you don't have any hitchhiking butterflies follow you out the door, lest you be the one to release the butterfly equivalent of the snake head fish into the world and cause the ultimate destruction of life as we know it on this plane. Because, as we all know, if a butterfly flaps it's wings in China.... OK, I don't really know the end of that quote.

Instead, enjoy this photo retrospective of the many faces of butterfly.