Thursday afternoon the kids and I shot some hoops in the driveway. We had a frozen pizza for dinner. We did their homework together. Both of them knew all their spelling words for their tests today. Homework seemed to be finished. Then Sierra claimed she needed to read part of her science textbook aloud to me, the part about states of matter and mixtures. Then she claimed we had to do an experiment to make a mixture.
It sounded like chemistry lab was being forced on me yet again. I was really good at chemistry in theory, balancing equations and so on. But once in the lab I became, well, significantly less stellar. One semester I'm pretty sure I got an award for breaking the most lab equipment ever at an institution that had been open for over one hundred years. I was never able to determine the Unknown Compound correctly, and if not for smarter lab partners I'd probably still be taking Chem Lab 101.
So Sierra wanted to make a mixture of things that sounded like we would be, well, baking something. Flour, vegetable oil, some food coloring....
Wait, I said, that sounds like baking. Are you sure this is an assignment for school?
She grinned. I said we could bake something this weekend. That made the assignment magically disappear, at least until shower time.
I walked into the bathroom as Mademoiselle Junior Chemist was getting ready to get into the shower. She was making a mixture of shampoo and conditioner together on a washcloth. The colors were quite stunning...a red cloth, blue shampoo, white conditioner. What's that? asked the mom who had broken glassware and even a huge mercury thermometer while trying to mix things in the distant past. It will save me time in the shower! the Girl Wonder replied. Oh, well, then, by all means...just don't blow anything up in there, answered the somewhat amazed mother.
And indeed, the Little Science Girl was out of the shower in no time at all, hair washed and conditioned and ready to watch her favorite TV show....Wipe Out!
About Me
- Kim
- United States
- Getting older is not for sissies. I'm not a sissy, thank goodness. I'm a physical therapist, mom, daughter, sister, friend, and I am looking forward to "what's next?"
4 comments:
Is that what they call "method to her madness"?
Plan your strategy. Get Other involved. Start project. Get foiled by Other. Obtain consessions.
Head for the shower.
I use to think things up, but no shower.Mine was a wash tub in the kitchen. My sister's girl friends would come in. Say OH excuse me and giggle. This sister was one of the three that put me in a cardboard box and threw me down the basement steps.
OW, Ow, ow. Ow, ow, ow, w, w, w. (That's me making sympathetic noises all the way down the stairs with Ted.)
Wowee, wow, wow! That's me and Junie B. Jones, cheering on Sierra, The Chem Lab Girl.
Sierra Hamburger Swift, great grand daughter of Tom. Always thinking. In high school chemistry I too was trouble. I handed my chemistry teacher my just heated glass tubing that I had bent over a bunsen burner. Actually he took it before I could hold it back.
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