Science Sunday: Week 4

We're traveling to health sciences this week, which is a surely a stretch for Science Sunday. Our query begins with the hypothesis: Elaine will not have a heart attack if she jogs a 5K, despite being completely unprepared.

Last Wednesday night, Ed's home town held a fireworks show. On the flier advertising the fireworks show, a 5K Turkey Trot was also advertised. Ed asked whether I wanted to run. Normally, Ed counts on me to bail him out of his stupid ideas, but this time, I decided to let him hang.

I told him I'd be happy to run 5K, even though I was completely unprepared. The things I lacked were plenty: training, an appropriate bra, appropriate shoes, appropriate clothing of any kind. I figured he would see my sorry state and he would bail me out, but he didn't. We stood in line, under the guise that Ed's sister-in-law would be joining us. By the time I made it to the front, she had decided to drop out, but neither Ed nor I were willing to follow suit. Stubbornness.

I borrowed running tights and a silk undershirt from Ed's Dad.

Our hypothesis was proven true. Thirty minutes and 8 seconds after the race started, I crossed the finish line. I walked through the water station, and paused briefly to give Helen a hug when I saw her on the side of the road. Connor had joined Ed a few minutes earlier to run the last half mile or so of the race. Ed and Connor finished a minute before me, so neither of us got to see the other cross the line.

Note photo awesomeness here - both feet are off the ground!

Winners, all!

Happy Thanksgiving!
Elaine

Science Sunday: Week 3

Science Sunday brought Ed and the kids into the kitchen this week. Only it was in the middle of dinner preparations, so I sent them packing. They were not dissuaded from their project by my lack of enthusiasm, they just filled up a pot of water and went to the bathroom.

The back story is that Helen and Ed purchased a pomegranate when they were on a field trip to the grocery store today. The last time we had one of these things in our house, I remembered it was a mess getting the seeds out, so upon seeing the fruit, I helpfully said "there's a right way to cut that thing which makes getting the seeds out very easy". Ed asked where I had seen the instructions to get the seeds out. I answered, like everyone else who ever needs a piece of information, "the Internet".

Ed dutifully went to youtube and learned that if you score the pomegranate, you can break it apart easily and get all the seeds out without making a mess. Sounds simple, right?

As you might imagine, I was a bit skeptical, since neither Ed nor the children can do ANYTHING without making a mess. And the three of them working in tandem is typically an unstoppable mess. I give Ed credit though, he knows his limits.

He had Connor and Helen jump in the bathtub for the experiment. And guess what?

Helen is clearly a bit skeptical about the labor she's being asked to perform.

No mess! It was easy! The seeds dropped right to the bottom of the water. There must be some scientific principles involving buoyancy at work here, right?

Maybe we'll eat more pomegranates now.

Elaine

Science Sunday: Week 2

Let's face it, after last week's explosion, there is no possible thing we could have done today that would have been Science Sunday: Week 1's equal. No matter what I post, you will be disappointed. I'm sorry.

It wasn't as exciting, but we did have fun today.

This week's Science Sunday took up to the Museum of Natural History. Probably the thing I love most about living in DC is how easy it is to pop into a great museum, spend a couple of hours, and then dash out before fatigue sets in.

Today, we did see one exhibit particularly appropriate for our home. The sign on this bone told us we could tell this dinosaur was a fighter because of the broken bone that didn't heal quite right. It probably made the left arm of little use.

Yeah...I couldn't see it either. So much for science.

The update on Connor, as long as we're on the topic of broken bones, is that he continues to heal. If he weren't moving so much, his surgeon might have removed the sling, but because Connor is extremely active (despite my constant STOP!), he said to keep the sling on.

The pins in Connor's arm need to come out, and the only time the surgeon can do it is Thursday morning because that's when he has hospital time scheduled. Connor has a field trip to the Natural History Museum (full circle, eh?) Thursday morning that Ed is planning on accompanying him on. Connor was devastated by the news. He sobbed. The nurse is looking for another time. Please, oh please, let a new time come through. I'm tired of telling Connor he can't do things.

Elaine

Science Sunday, Week 1

I should explain the recent titling of posts. I'm participating in National Blog Posting Month, NaBloPoMo, once more. Every day in November, I will attempt to post. I've done this for a few years, some years more successfully than others.

Last year was my most successful year, and I'm confident it's because I gave myself some structure. I wrote an advice column. If you want to read my daily blatherings, all of the posts are linked here. I actually had a lot of fun with this challenge last year.

This year, I decided to break the challenge into days of the week. I plan to write about a different topic, posting roughly four times on each topic. I decided this on November 1, so it's been a little shaky getting things going. The structure is this:

Thursday: Around the House
Friday: {this moment}
Saturday: Fall / Winter Crafts
Sunday: Science Sunday
Monday: Connor's Day
Tuesday: Politics
Wednesday: Helen's Day

Wish me luck.

The first installment of Science Sunday happened quite unexpectedly this afternoon. It is one of the many good by-products of Connor's broken arm. A friend of mine that I met in 7th grade sent Connor a care package. It's basically a small plastic tube and a roll of Mentos candy. In order to make a geyser, you are supposed to secure the plastic tube to a diet soda bottle (and that diet part is important, because apparently diet soda is a lot less sticky than regular soda). Then you place a pin in the plastic tube, stack the Mentos on top, pull the pin out and watch a 25 foot geyser happen.

Connor and I carefully read the instructions on the package, and then Ed helped Connor with the experiment. I don't think Ed ever read the instructions, and that explains this video.

The play-by-play is this.

1. Ed does not follow the instructions.
2. Helen warns her friend Naim of impending doom.
3. Naim's mom and I assure Naim everything is fine. Clearly, we are optimists.
4. Connor paces nervously, and then tries to assure the crowd about what will happen.
5. Ed warns about a "splash zone".
6. Ed discovers the splash zone at the point it becomes obvious he didn't read the instructions to the experiment.

In case anyone ever wondered why Ed and I do not home school our children, I think the above video puts that issue firmly to bed.

Elaine