science experiments

In our house if there is a strange glass of liquid on the counter or a seemingly odd assortment of stuff gathered in one place, it is always best to leave it alone.  Most of the time, these are science experiments in process or in the planning stages.  At the moment, we are copper plating a nail (pretty cool actually) and growing a dinosaur to 3x its size.  We also have been working on the elusive formula for invisible ink.  Somewhere in a pile in the kitchen (carefully stacked lemon juice, then milk) are two pieces of paper that don't look like anything but have secret messages upon them.  Sometime in the next day or two when the toddler is otherwise occupied we need to see if we can put them up to a flame and see the message.

As a child I remember making concoctions in the kitchen and loving to mix things together.  Harry goes one step further, he wants to make things that do things or create things which have some purpose (even though sometimes the purpose is mysterious to me - it is always essential to him).  I love this part of him, although I do shudder to think what will happen as the experiments get more complex and beyond my knowledge.  He already knows some scientific concepts that were not taught and were barely around when I was in school.  We have microscopes and telescopes and even though he spends much of life in constant motion, he is noticing much of what is being said and going on in the world around him.

Summertime is fun because there is actually time to get some of these things done.  I think one of my chores for today is to seek out sparklers.  It is now legal to buy them in our great state and somehow Harry has heard of them and requested some for the fourth.  I will have to seek them out.  Those are another thing I particularly liked as a child.  That is one of the benifits of Mommyhood, I get to make concoctions, light sparklers and throw water balloons - all in the name of play with my children.