2007 Science Fair

Well, this is it! The kids are completely finished with their science projects, down to the last wording change and sticker application. The fair begins tomorrow morning at 8:30 am.

Triss altered and redid her experiment from last year. She not only conducted her experiment and documentation without help, but has done all her computer work herself. She drew her diagrams in Paint, typed up her report pages, setting fancy borders around each page and added Word Art to her title board. She even figured out how to load data into Excel and make her graphs. I stood by and said things like, "How'd ya do that?" or "Hey, I didn't know you could just move the tab to make it line up!" I foresee that this will be the child that fixes my Internet and computer problems for me. I am not inclined in that direction.

I was her personal assistant, reminding her of deadlines, making sure she kept her things where she could find them and requiring her to practice her speech at least twice a day as soon as her board was finished. I am working on handing even that responsibility over to her next year.

This is Mariel's first science fair. She is very excited about exhibiting her project. I was her personal assistant, secretary and advisor, helping her stay abreast of requirements, typing down her tellings as she dictated them to me, discussing results, and making board recommendations. We decided against any kind of graph as she is not yet ready to give explanations of them, so she is relying on basic math to explain the results.

I would display pictures, but my camera is in my purse and I will be banished from Fair Mommy-Land if I dare to forget it tomorrow.

Cornflower has not been left out of all this. Our support group is having a Family Science Night in two weeks, where children of any age can share their scientific work. She continues to "swell wisibly" as I encourage her to document the flower she is growing, and today solemnly proclaimed, as she carried home a heavy piece of concrete aggregate for further observation in the backyard, that she was a scientist.

This is so much fun.

The laundry is terribly behind, the dishes have piled up despite my desultory efforts at tidiness, the carpet has not been vacuumed in a week-- but the children are satisfied that their science projects are ready and I feel vindicated in my role of Family Support Specialist/Manager.

(I will be glad to go back to normal, though. I'm a bit tired of looking for socks in the laundry basket and wondering whether anyone else will notice we missed dinner if I say nothing about it.)