It's okay -- Butterflies don't live long

I'll confess.
My blogging has been less than satisfactory.
I'm afraid I may bore you to tears with stories about my son, but here we go again.
He had a rough week.
He got in trouble at school for calling a para-professional a name -- nothing terrible (stinky butthole, if you're wondering) -- but nothing good either. So he had to sit on the bench at the following day's recess.
Then that same evening, he lost control of his bicycle and ate the pavement in front of our house. His nose was all swollen, which caused purple lines and he had a fat lip. There was little blood, so at least he didn't have a broken nose.
The following day at school must have also been rough, because he came home and fell asleep on the couch at 4 p.m. He didn't wake up until 5 a.m.
He and I have both been crabby lately, so this weekend perked us up a little bit.
We painted pumpkins. He was super excited about that. But he insisted we purchase EIGHT pumpkins. Eight. We had to have eight.
So, we went to a local pumpkin patch along the highway leading to our tiny town and picked out eight little pumpkins. We bought paint and brushes, and sat outside in the perfect weather on Saturday afternoon (after I had a nap).
He painted one as Spiderman, painted a spider on another, a vampire, some random colors and two others I can't quite recall. I also painted a vampire with bats, and a white pumpkin sporting a skull face.
Then, on Sunday, my son successfully rode his bicycle to the neighbor's shallow ditch to collect sticks -- not sure why. As I was reading in the lawn chair, I heard him talking to me from a block away and looked up to him gingerly walking toward home. I met him halfway and he said, "Mom, look, this butterfly landed on me!"
So he had a butterfly friend for two hours or so. The poor thing had rips in its wings and couldn't fly. The kiddo enjoyed watching the butterfly drink sugar water from a stick and carried it around the yard. It would crawl on his shirt, up the back of his neck -- "Mom, it tickles! -- and settle in his hair.
Finally, my son decided it was time to let the butterfly go, so he set him back in the ditch -- and then accidentally stepped on him.
He came back to tell me that without tears and said, "But, Mom, it's okay, because butterflies don't live long lives anyway."
Well. I guess that's true. At least he accepted it was an accident and there was nothing he could do about it.
This morning he went to investigate the dead body to find only the wings remained.
He was also okay with the fact a bird probably ate the body and left the wings.
He told me birds have to eat too and they like insects.
"But remember, Mom. Butterflies don't live long lives, so it's okay."