Fun with science

It's been a science-y type week here in Hoth.  Not to use overly technical terms.

To start with, it was the school science fair.  Ethan has been working on his project for several weeks, which is entitled, "Do seeds grow better in soil or rocks?"  

He's been carefully caring for two sets of seeds, one growing in soil, the other in rocks, both placed on the piano where they could manage to leak water all over its beautiful (cherry?) wood, despite the fact that they were placed inside of a plastic tupperware container on top of a folded hand towel.  The real question we should have investigated was, "What kind of magical water do we have, that it can escape all reasonable attempts to contain it?"  (I think the answer doesn't lie so much with the water as it does the waterer.  But I digress.)

In keeping with the science-y theme this week, Jon and I are conducting experiments in toddler behavior.  The question we're investigating is, "How long will it take a toddler with already messed up sleeping habits to adjust to daylight savings time?"  We haven't concluded our research, but we can draw a preliminary conclusion:  longer than five days.  We're also--inadvertently--exploring a behavioral corollary:  "How cranky will the 20 weeks pregnant mother of said toddler get after five days of sleep-deprivation-induced toddler temper tantrums?"  The results are still out, but I'm sure Jon and the boys could give you some vehement personal opinions on the subject.  Poor guys.

Elijah's first science experience this week gave me the willies:

Urg.  I'm so grateful that Jon has a strong "no reptiles for pets" rule.  Shudder.

Elijah also got to go the the great bouncy ball drop of 2011, wherein 20,000 bouncy balls--yes, you read that correctly--were dropped from a helicopter to simulate electron motion.  At least, that's what all the science geeks were telling people the purpose was.  Personally, I think the whole thing smacks of a frat stunt, but...hey, it was entertainment.  The deal was that you could keep whatever you caught, and Elijah, bless his optimistic heart, brought a laundry basket to hold his haul.  The basket had the added bonus of acting as an impromptu helmet as the balls were being dropped, as seen below:

Note:  the crowd was expecting big bouncy balls.  In retrospect, that was a little unrealistic, as it would have required one of those baskets used to drop water on forest fires.  What we got was a little less...spectacular. 

Little-known fact: 20,000 one-inch rubber balls being dropped out of a hovering helicopter make it look like the helicopter is spawning.

Gabriel had a little baby stroke of joy at the sight of the helicopter.  It.  Was.  Awesome.  That's my boy.

I was going to end this post with a picture of the newest Alfred, whose gender was determined (YAY A GIRL) this week.  Unfortunately, the disc doesn't have the cool 3D images, just the creepy 2D/black and white images and I don't have access to the scanner right now.  Sigh.  I guess I could show you a really great image of her frontal lobe (it's huge!), but...nah.  I will say this, though:  my nose is very clearly a dominant trait, as is Jon's chin.  The girl fetus is very definitely related to Gabriel.

Let's hope she sleeps better than he does...as it's 9:30 and I'm not even going to TRY to put him to bed yet (please see blog dated March 9th, lesson 2, number 5).  I don't feel like having six consecutive lessons in futility....