Science Fair

Thursday night, I arrived at the school science fair to conduct my own experiment: How Many Parents’ Names Will I remember? My hypothesis was zero. My results were zero.

I love the science fair. I love the one potato clock that seems to be passed down from student to student every year. I love the dueling volcanos. I love the kids who just let their nerd dads do their projects. I love the kid who thinks two Star Wars ships in a blackened shoe box counts as science (it does and if there was an award for best science he would’ve won).

I chatted with a fellow ad dad who showed me his son’s work: A white poster board with a hand drawn lemon. He said, “We had some tears last night.” I told him I liked his lemon.

Elijah and Luca’s science experiments were both great this year. Why? Because both boys teamed up with kids whose parents were far more organized than Diana and I could ever be. Eli’s buddy had parents who scheduled multiple science sessions, helped print out photos of crystals, kept them on task and cracked the whip when they wanted to do stuff like play or hang out.

I assume Luca’s pal was in the same situation. Because his little “Which materials cleans pennies best” display was not the result of a child who prefers iPad viewing over eating.

The boys and I went home after a half-hearted attempt to find Luca’s sweatshirt. “I didn’t like that sweatshirt anyway,” he said. I told him that wasn’t the point.

Diana was at work, so we decided to play an xbox game together. Diana, when I write “xbox game,” I mean “volunteered at a soup kitchen.”

Where the boys got to observe another experiment: How many times dad can say the F-word while playing xbox. The result? 14.