My coffee maker quit working this morning. I stood at the sink for 20 minutes, sand in my eyes, grumbling tummy, and in the dark of the early hour while I hand strained hot water through a coffee filter. Only the dim light of the stove's overhead illuminated my task. Yes, I was desperate! I also wasn't waking up. Standing steady while water filters through coffee is far from exhilarating and more along the lines of hypnotizing!
I brought my husband his cuppa-jo and then fell back onto my pillow, 'just until he kisses me goodbye'.
It was nearly 9:00 when my 10 year old was the one to walk in and kiss me on the cheek. Her way of saying, "time to get up mom, you have slept long enough"! But she doesn't say that. She just smiles and asks what we are doing today. "Can we start our science projects now?" I had no caffeine yet to help form a coherent reply. Still, I felt terrible. It is a "school day". I keep getting told that the joy of homeschooling is that the kids learn all the time and you don't have to have a rigid schedule. But still, I like to pretend we do!
So now we are having an upside down day. By the time we all had breakfast and I showered off it was approaching 10:00. The kids were desperate to do the secret project I had planned with some Modeling Balloons (the kind you make balloon animals out of). I gave in. We can always do reading and math this afternoon. The point is, it gets done... right?
I set them to decorating a toilet paper tube in preparation for the attachment of a rocket booster. The whole contraption was to sit on a clothesline in launch mode. Yes, we are studying all things outer space.... still. We have been at it since right after Christmas break! All the "experts" say if they like something, go with it. So we have.
It was a groggy start. Just like the whole of my morning. (The warmed coffee tasted awful by the way.) No one could find the bicycle pump and I really didn't want to hunt for it. Modeling Balloons are next to impossible to blow up by mouth! BUT.... I am trying to be healthier, stop sending the kids on errands I can do, and I was trying to redeem my day so I searched for and found it.
We had lift off. It fizzled. I felt I could relate to the lazy send-off of our rockets still sitting close to the launch pad -aka- beginning of the clothesline. But we kept at it. We "observed", we made adjustments, and we tried again and again and finally, my 8 year old's balloon made it all the way!
Does that mean I will eventually reach lift off too? Will I land on the moon before the day is over? I don't know, but I am going to aim there!!!
A note on this project: Perhaps through user error or some other malfunction the modeling balloons didn't work at all. We decided to try regular ones and achieved better propulsion when they were angled right.--- My 8 year old enjoying the excitement of indoor flight! Hey it is Montana... of course we have indoor clotheslines!!---
No comments:
Post a Comment