All Creatures Great and Small

Rylee loves animals, animals of any kind.

I think most little girls would be excited about riding an elephant,

petting a soft cuddly lamb,

or snuggling a puppy.

Lots of kids probably also enjoy wrestling over a chew toy

or petting a tired dog.

(I have to point out that in this picture Rylee is noticing that both she and the owner have green nail polish...this picture was taken just after St. Patrick's day)

Roly Polys are always a hit!

But a few months ago, Rylee's preschool class studied insects for a few weeks. We still haven't recovered.

The kids were allowed to bring any bugs they found in to school (brave teachers, huh?)

This was Rylee's first guest.

Meet "Swimmy"

Why did she name him that you ask? I have no clue, since he is a flying and certainly not a swimming bug. But ever since then, whenever she sees one of these bugs she points out that Swimmy is back again. Believe it or not, Swimmy followed us all the way up to the hotel by Disneyland last month and then turned up back at our house a few days later! Swimmy must have wings of steel.

Well, Swimmy may not be what most kids would have chosen to name a bug, but I think most 4 year olds would probably jump at the chance to catch a bug and bring it in for show and tell. When Rylee found her next friend (or should I say captured her next victim?) to bring to school is when I started to become aware of the fact that her interest in bugs was less normal and more obsessive.

Meet "Master"

Rylee found Master, along with this pretty yellow flower, on a walk. Once again, not sure where the name came from. But Master was very much a part of our physical lives for over 24 hours, and continues to live with us in spirit 3 months later. Rylee took her (NOT him - she corrected me on Master's gender several times) to school in a jar the next day, then came home and watched TV with Master crawling all over her arms.

This video is Master's last documentation...we convinced Rylee to let her sleep outside. In the morning the first thing she did was run out back to look for Master...to her great disappointment, Master was no longer there.

From that point on, Rylee spent every day at recess looking for bugs and often came come with a container of Roly Poly's. I will say, this was pretty cool; one day she came home with a cup full of them, including an albino Roly Poly! I didn't even know those existed!

So the girl's obsessed with bugs. She also didn't flinch a bit when someone caught this ginormous frog at the park.

Our Princess and her Frog

Cailyn was interested, too...

...but like any sensible girl, didn't want to get too close.

At least one pro (?): Rylee didn't want to KISS the frog!

I saw this video on facebook and died laughing because this little girl reminded me so much of Rylee:

Within a week or so of seeing the video, Rylee was sitting on the couch one day and squealed "Mom, a gopher is on our window" as she sprinted for the front door. Well, it wasn't a gopher, but it was a mouse or a rat of some sort. Ava was at our house and she and Cailyn were in tears while Rylee was trying to catch the little thing. Good thing it wasn't dead.