Items of Specific and General Interest

First of specific interest (meaning for my mom).

As of yesterday, Jack can officially crawl.

This development pleases him greatly.

And entirely uncoincidentally, he has also been sleeping for a nine-hour stretch for the past couple of nights. The electrical outlets are no longer safe, but I'll take constant vigilance over sleep-walking through my day.

And now for the general interest item . . .

Charlie spotted a white caterpillar on the picnic table outside while we were eating our lunch in the kitchen. We went out for a closer look and I told him we would look it up and try to identify it.

Do you see the "Do Not Touch" sign? No? It should really have one.*

Turns out it was a Hickory Tussock Moth caterpillar, and that those particular caterpillars are kind of venomous. Venomous enough to produce symptoms similar to poison ivy, anyway, which is definitely a bummer. Good thing we didn't touch it.

So if you ever see a fuzzy white caterpillar with black spots running down the center of its body and little spiky hairs, don't touch it.

You're welcome.

* You can probably tell from the quality of the photo that I did not take it. It's from this University of Wisconsin website.