What Happens If?

Bug’s latest fascination is “experiments.” These generally take the form of combining corn starch, milk, leaves from the hedges, curry powder, dish soap, and split peas into an unrecognizable glop. He seems to be practicing cooking more than testing a hypothesis, although the line between the culinary and the scientific arts is a fine one.

All this chemistry indicates Bug is primed for the rite of passage required of any young scientist: The Kitchen Volcano. Yesterday, we hopped out back with a collection of household items. “Let’s see what happens,” I said. He was curious, asking me question after question as I urged him to measure, pour, and watch. At one point, he was so uncertain and excited that he stood as far back from the table as he could manage while stirring up the baking soda.

As parents, we sometimes forget our kids don’t know what we know. The meeting between a base and an acid may be dramatic the first few times, but it loses its allure when it turns into a method for refreshing a garbage disposal.

 

For Bug, this was his first time. My job was to keep my mouth shut and let him explore, refusing to answer his insistent questions. “What will it do, Mommy? Will it explode?”

"What do you think will happen?" I asked. He ignored the question. At a certain point, doing the experiment is far more appealing than thinking about it.

For a twist, Bug had free access to the food coloring. He decided to mix hues, telling me blue with yellow would make red. He was as surprised by the resulting color as he was by the swift rise of his ingredients.  

 

This was not, Bug made clear to me, a volcano. "We made foamy soap!" Much more exciting, perhaps because it is more real. The boy is just beginning to piece together the origins of the common items in his world. Meat, for example, is a subject of great curiosity. "Which part of the animal are we eating? Is this its skin? How do they get the meat out?" Fun dinnertime conversation. So, it was with great delight and pride that Bug managed to concoct something similar to the stuff he uses to wash his hands.

The fact that it is bright green and a giant mess doesn't hurt.