Science Fair

I just found this half finished post from March and finished it up.  So here is Little Man and his Science Fair about three months later.  

Recently, Little Man participated in the Science Fair. At his school the this is an extra activity and not required, but he said he wanted to do it. Although I think his decision had more to do with my overly enthusiastic asking of the question, "Bud, do you want to do the science fair?" and then launching into all the cool things we could do. This is because I get overly enthusiastic about anything that he brings home like this, because I don't want him to miss out on any experiences. Anyways, thinking of all the cool experiments we could do and then actually doing and RECORDING and putting the results together with a five year old, who is supposed to be doing most of the work, were two different things.
It did end up being fun, although part way through Little Man commented, "Mommy, this is A LOT of work, can we be done now?" I also had a little flash forward to him as a teenager working on his homework as he got to stay up "late" (9:00) the night before finishing it (Mike was at youth night that night and it was too hard to finish with all three kids up). When it was all done, he commented how it looked really nice and it made me happy to see him take pride in something he had worked hard to finish. When Mike did get home he and I asked Little Man questions about his experiment and he answered them.

The next day, I took him to school and helped him set it up. I then bit my lip to stop myself from interrupting as the nice PTA mom in charge of the whole thing asked him questions about his project and he kind of froze up. I kept wanting to say, "Oh, he knows that" and help him answer, but I didn't.

He tested to major diaper brands, Huggies and Pampers, to see which brand could hold more water in three different experiments and sizes.  Pampers won in two of his three experiments.

And look at this cute little girl coming to support her brother.  This was taken BEFORE the science presentation where she had to be taken out into the hallway twice (once my me and once by Mike) and eventually after many bad choices ended up in the mini van with Mike waiting for the rest of us.  Meaning that she missed the grand finale of the show which was pop shooting up into the sky.  When the boys and I joined them in the car she was bawling, "But it's going to be so many seasons before I can see the science show again and make a good choice."  

Overall it was a fun night.  I was proud of Little Man and the work that he put into the project.  The science presentation, which happened to be put on by a friend of ours from church who did a fantastic job, was entertaining and educational.  And hopefully next year Kiwi will be able to enjoy it all too.