It's been a rough couple of weeks...

Nico Broke his elbow. As if he's not in the hospital often enough!   Thankfully it's healing well and he will not need any pins or surgery.  6 weeks of a cast... and he is SUCH a trooper... he tried very hard not to cry and he Never complains about it.  LOVE YOU...

The Day before Easter Nico, like many other kids, thought it would be a good idea to spin in circles until he got dizzy. Unlike most other kids, he stopped spinning and started to run, right into the edge of a door jam!  Wow his head swelled fast!  It has since turned every color of the rainbow.   But once again, he's a trooper, he went right on playing (after the ice pack) and was well enough to go Easter Egg hunting and to get hurt again the next day. 

His 6 year old cousin Riley has a great arm... Unfortunately Nico's is in a cast... he was unable to catch the baseball, but his nose was able to stop it.  Bled like a sieve.  He is a magnet for injury.  I love you Nico... just duck next time, o.k.?

****  On a final note, I have witnesses for all of these events..

My son is turning into a Robot!

Nico has epilepsy. And sometimes that means he needs wires attached to his head to make sure he's not turning into a Robot... well, that's what I tell him anyway.

In all actuality we wanted to make sure that Nico wasn't having seizures while he slept... good news, we don't think he is... at least not that night.  I stayed over with him, but Ryan and I spent the days with him playing the WII and watching movies and being annoyed with nurses making him drink 20 gallons and liquid a day.... HE'S NOT THIRSTY!

He loved moving his face and blinking his
eyes vigorously to change the
squiggly lines on the EEG reading :-)
funny little boy. 

How he does it all with out freaking out it beyond me... Brave boy.  Although I think that the technicians that attach his wires are a little bit immune to kid's feelings.  They have a time schedule and don't want to be slow for a worried little boy.  They could have been more gentle, but I'm his mother, and I'm supposed to say that!  Be Nice, he's my perfect little boy and you are not allowed to break him!!!!!!!

What is all this stuff!?

Nico found an old camera in our junk drawer - I told him to take it apart and look around.  He and Ryan had a hey day.  motors and batteries and gears and wires and things I don't know the names of.

They used the motor and gears in the old camera in combination with a AA battery and some "tiny jumper cables" to make gears and pinwheels spin.   This went on for a good hour and 1/2.

General Science

Nico's 6 year old Birthday party. He got a Chemistry kit, an electricity kit and some plastic measuring cups and beakers.  We had 12 kids around the table making Goop and Slime.  Well, almost 12 - two of the 6 year old boys thought it was just too gross and couldn't stomach it.  The next day, science continued

The girls were really into it.  Messy Messy Messy.  Slime - Water and Corn Starch.  - add the food coloring to the water before mixing with corn starch.

Luca enjoying Yellow Goop.  

  

Nico mixing up the goop - 1/2 cup of Elmers glue and 1/2 cup water mixed together with a couple of drops of food coloring.  Then add a mixture of 1 tsp of borax and 1/2 cup water.  Mix Mix Mix.  and have a ball.  On the right we were learning about the density of water and oil.  They just won't stay mixed!    

The Dry Up... Day 10, The End

 Hmmm nothing much happened.  It's pretty crunchy and it only dried up. It got pretty crunchy too.

The Lime shrunk a bunch and all the juice dried up.  It got pretty crunchy too.

The cauliflower is pretty gross - It started to Decay - Woo Hoo!   It got blacker and blacker every day.







Let's do it again... Next time - what happens if we cover the food up????  I bet they will DECAY!!!!

The Dry Up... Day 3 & 5.

Day 3: Looks the same, getting pretty dry

Excitement started to wane at day 5 when nothing much was happening.  The Great Dry up was exactly that - Dry.

Day 5: Really Dry and crunchy - maybe  a litte bit darker brown

Day 3: More Brown spots, looks gross

Day 5: It Shrunk! and got yuckier

Day 5: It's also shrinking and getting really dry

Day 3:  It's getting dried up. 

The Dry Up... Day 1

The First experiment.  Nico wanted to experiment with food to see what would happen - hoping that they would DECAY - This was said in a very sinister voice.  It's a basic concept.  We would take pictures, and write about the process and put it on the Blog.  Very exciting.  This experiment was done dry - the food wasn't covered, so the moisture would evaporate.  

Slice of Lime

Whole Wheat Bread

Cauliflower

Observations for the first day were basic.  Nico stated that all the food looked normal and moist, but the cauliflower had brown spots.  "Maybe it's already started decaying... This is Great!"

The Science Man

Nico has just turned 6 - and he is now the Science Man.   It started innocently about a month ago... I woke up to Nico collecting germs with a plastic syringe.  His plan  was to collect them, put them onto a piece of paper and after 28 hours EXACTLY he would look at the paper and see if any germs showed up on the paper, we would know if there were germs because the germs would turn bright colors.  I just loved it, and although his process was slightly flawed, he has been doing science almost every day since.  ... Let the Experiments begin.