I spent the morning with my daughter and her friend at a butterfly conservatory.

It was a great way to escape the cold, hang out with some green plants and watch a million, well, a bunch (I wasn’t paying attention to the signs because I was trying to bolt through the gift shop) of beautiful butterflies with some fabulous, young girls.

Except the minute we opened the door, the fabulous, young girls became scaredy cats of the worst kind.

The kind that cling to each other and squeal and rationalize the flight path of the butterflies being so dangerously close to their heads with things like, “I’m pretty sure they don’t bite” while the other said things like, “We can’t be sure.”

To the toddlers reaching with delight toward the amazing, tiny creatures (insects? I really should have stopped to read the signs) my kids acted as though they were tip-toeing through a haunted house and with each new species of butterfly, they had just been lunged at by a masked man with a meat cleaver.

After an hour, I finally convinced them to pose for a picture so we could capture the lush greenery, the tropical foliage and the natural beauty all around us.

This is the best I could get.