Universe of Sciahnce

There’s a particular question our eldest asks many times per day. It’s one that’s giving us mixed feelings… on one hand, we’re super proud of our young man showing curiosity and a desire passion for things beyond cartoons. But on the other hand, it’s something that requires much adult intervention and seemingly endless research.

“Can I do a sciahhhnce?” he asks (intentionally mispronouncing “science” because it’s hilarious).

My wife and I usually look at each other; me with eyes begging her to handle it (because she’s genuinely better at finding and setting up experiments, as well she should be as a Doctor of Biochemistry!), her with eyes asking me why I can’t step up to the plate for a change.

So after avoiding sciahhnce for most of the day (we kept finding actual important things to do like walk the dogs or go to Green Eggs and Hamadeus at the NAC) we were finally cornered. But then Mama monkey (bless her) thought up a wicked-sweet experiment: what if the monkey were to take “Instant Snow” from his science kit (a rapidly expanding polymer), and instead of using regular water, use water with yellow highlighter ink/fluid in it? And of course where there is highlighter, there is black light fun to be had!

The best part was, after gathering up the instant snow, the water, and a few other things to keep him occupied, we could lock him in a dark room and let him do his own thing.

It was a grand success! And when I saw the minor amount of mess he had made, I just knew I had to grab a photo:

Language Fun

Our eldest is LOVING language play right now. He will spend his entire day rhyming and making up nonsense words, to supplement his actual good conversational skills with a bit of fun. As an added bonus, he is enjoying learning some basic French right now, which bodes well for French-language school.

Along with language play comes the expected hilarity.

“Puck muck truck luck guck zuck,” he sings along cheerfully. “Gruck duck buck _______”. You fill in the blank. Mama and me just look at each other and stifle laughter. I mean, HE didn’t know what he said.

…

“Daddy is a stinky kinky,” he says last week. The laughter exploded out of Mama unchecked. “What’s so funny, mommy?” he asks.

“What do YOU think ‘kinky’ means?” she asks.

“Oh you know, like blabidablahblah kookoshnuDIBBUMS!” he yells. Did I mention he loves nonesense words?

“Well,” she says, “what it means to YOU is something like a string that has an unexpected bend in it. What it might mean to some adults can be something different, so let’s keep that word in our back pocket until later,” she says, happy to drop it at that.

…

There have been others, but some of those we’ll save as family legends.

Jolly Jumper (Actually a Greco jumper)

Basically since he could barely-sorta hold his own head up, the youngest (just 4 months old now!) has loved standing on our laps or on a chair with his hands held. The semi-independent standing almost invariably grabs his interest and puts a big grin on his face.

Knowing that, I’m not sure why it took us so long to bust out the Greco “Jolly Jumper” thing. Plopped him in last night and it was an instant hit. Hasn’t lost its charm today, either.

His big brother was also a big fan of the jumper, but I think the younger one has that same love, doubled. Sure, you can only leave him in it for “so” long before he tires of it and wants to be held, but while he’s in his element I don’t think there’s anything more fun in the world.

Side note: tickling his armpits is also making him laugh some seriously cute and HUGE laughs. Adorable. Love that little guy.