Pet Caterpillar and Rescue Breathing

Fei Fei has been wanting a pet for the longest time. Mark and I are in no place to have one, other than taking care of the two we already have. So one day Fei Fei found a caterpillar outside of our house, and she excited claimed the caterpillar as her "pet", after our friend's daughter, Jayden, who also has a love for caterpillars. Under Mark's instruction, Fei Fei put the caterpillar in a small box, furnished with leaves, twigs and grass. She even asked me to poke a hole on the lid of the box so that the caterpillar could breath. She fondly named her Cinderella, for she had a blue stripe across her body. 

On another totally different occasion, I got a book for First Aid for Infants and Children when Jun Jun turned one, who since a few months old has experienced more falls than Fei Fei (my self-comforting reasoning for that is that it's normal with child #2). I thought that a book like that can be handy at home. 

Ever since I got the book, Fei Fei has been so interested to read it and learn all about bandages, rescue breathing, how to take care of nose bleeding, wounds, etc. One time she even practiced CPR on her stuffed animals when we were reading this book together. I thought this was a perfect learning time for body parts and medical knowledge. 

Last week there were a few days that were just brutally hot, and Fei Fei had left her "pet" outside on the deck. The next day, we found that pet caterpillar had died, probably due to heat (or maybe starvation). Fei Fei was very sad about that. We talked about giving her a burial in our yard. Then she said, "but I can do rescue breathing for her!" I tried not to laugh while being so touched by her love for her "pet". Then she asked me questions like, "does caterpillar have a mouth? A heart? A lung? A face? did her heart stop beating?" And I looked at her wide eyed, because my brain normally doesn't think of such topics. 

So, the moral of this story is that I realize I don't know much about caterpillars, and I'd better do some research about them before another rescue breathing situation comes up! Before I know it, my list of things to investigate is getting longer.