Mariechen

I know, I know. I promised some final party details. But as I suspected, sorting through the kids clothes took way longer than expected. Don't even get me started... so while little brother is napping and big brother is standing next to me talking constantly, I'll try to finish a post I started writing the other day.... It's about our latest family member:

„Mommy, can I please keep her? Please, Mommy?”

This was my son asking me if he could adopt a new “pet”. Apparently having three cats is not enough. It was last Sunday, and we were standing in the rain on a muddy field close to where my in-laws live, watching historical tractors plow the field and getting stuck. I mentioned before that tractors are big in my house, didn’t I? Guess that comes with having three men in the house.

Anyway, big brother was wearing his yellow rain jacket and inbetween downpours, were standing on the field, when a ladybug apparently fell in love with that yellow jacket. No way convincing that little creature to move to a leaf or someplace else where it wouldn’t be in danger of getting smushed by all the rainboots around. The yellow jacket it was. And my son kept looking at the ladybug, watching as she crawled around his arms and hands, protecting her from his curious little brother. She even got a name: Mariechen (the German word for ladybug being Marienkäfer). So Mariechen was carried around and eventually placed in a paper cup  I got from my mother in law, who was selling cake for the historical society at the event. Of course I was the one who had to carry the cup with Mariechen all day, covering it with a napkin so she wouldn’t get away. 

A small, dark ladybug with four red dots. “See, Mommy, she is four years old!” And of course we had to take her home. Once it stopped raining, we had to convince him to set her free. Oh. Drama. The poor little guy was crying and screaming, he wanted to keep Mariechen and have her live with us. I gently tried to explain that a household with no bugs to eat and three curious cats is just not a good place for a ladybug. Really. That she needs to stay outside. Meet new ladybug friends, go eat some small bugs, find someplace to live in our backyard. It took me half an hour before we could even set her in one of grandma’s rose bushes. More drama. He did eventually calm down and say goodbye to Mariechen, but he kept asking about her all afternoon. We assured him she’d be ok, that she found a much better home here than the field she lived in before. That she probably had been very hungry from the trip, ate as much as she could and was now napping in a nice, cosy place in the roses. Or so.

 

So, anyone got any good ideas where I am getting a ladybug from next Spring that is dark and has exactly four dots?!