Batman's a Scientist

Over the weekend, Laura and I went up to Pennsylvania to check out John Patrick, my new nephew. He's pretty cute. At less than a month old, he's already over 13 lbs. Surprisingly strong for his age, though, he was able to keep his head up on his own. It was great to see the little guy.



We also delivered Natalie her birthday present. Laura and I tried to figure out what we should get her for a while and decided to get her a little science kit. The one we found had volcanoes, crystals and color, so it would keep her interested long enough.



When we gave it to her, she was fascinated by it and within an hour, we had it open and were starting to conduct experiments. We did the baking soda and citric acid trick, then added some red cabbage dye to test acids and bases. Nicholas and Mary Kate didn't want to be left out, so all three of them were playing with science.





Soon we were pulling everything out of the refrigerator to see what was an acid and what was a base. Mary Kate was pretty excited to see what we were going to be doing with it.



Over the course of the afternoon, the kids were enthralled by everything that was happening. Natalie was catching on pretty quick to how acids and bases interact, and was able to make some hypotheses and test them with her kit.

Eventually, we got to an experiment that took about 2-3 hours to set up the solutions for. Laura read ahead and saw the one after that took the same setup, so we just doubled the solutions required to set up. That night, we finished one of the two experiments, but Nicholas, impulsive as always, picked up one of the remaining solutions and dumped it into the second solution, thus ending the second experiment quickly. We set everything up and then finished it in the morning, but that stalled us from doing anything more before we left. At least there's a lot left to do with their mom and dad. When we left, Natalie exclaimed, "I want to do more science!" Grandpa would be proud.