μεταμόρφωσις

Matthew has been kept busy during the past few days with his caterpillars. A little boy that comes to The Little Gym named Raymond brought the caterpillars from his yard. They eat passion vine leaves. Our jar currently has two caterpillars and three chrysalises. After a few more days in the chrysalis stage these three should emerge as butterflies. Matthew has enjoyed keeping track of how much the caterpillars have eaten and is always asking when they will finally pop out as butterflies. At some point when all we had were five caterpillars Matthew would constantly ask, "When are they going to change to 'chrythalith?'" I can remember several times that I would be in his room in the middle of the night, he would have a 104 degree fever and ice packed around him, and the main question on his mind would have to do with these little creatures in the jar next to his bed. We've been thankful for little things like this that keep him curious and allow him to focus on something besides how he is feeling.

Since noon last Sunday Matthew has had five periods of fever. The fever periods generally last about eight hours, starting with a long, gradual rise in temperature, an hour or two at the peak and then a fairly rapid descent back to normal. Two of the fevers peaked above 105 this week. Encouagingly, though, when he hasn't had the fevers his temperatures have been very normal and the periods of him not having fever seem to be lasting longer and longer.