When science goes bad

Second grade has been good to Jensen so far, thanks in no small part to science class. His sole stated reason for wanting to attend school has always been, "For science class." (I think he wants to learn how to blow things up, but maybe I'm wrong.) Sadly, it appears that our public education system does not trust five- and six-year-olds with bunsen burners or frog carcasses.

This year is different, though. They're doing experiments, and in his mind it's PhD-caliber stuff. Yesterday he came home with his first "lab sheet." They timed how long it took to melt ice. Here's the transcript (emphasis added):

1. Describe how you melted your ice. I put it in my armpit, my shoo [sic], my shirt, and down my pants. I rubbed it in my hands and on my back.
2. How long did it take your ice cube to melt? 13 minutes

Right. I was a science geek, and I'll admit it to anybody. My favorite college class? Organic chemistry. I went to Science Nerd Camp and was even a runner-up for a national science symposium. But I'm pretty sure I never put any experimental object down my pants. I hope he loses this urge before he moves into the realm of hydrochloric acid....

Cute? Yep. Coordinated? Well...

I suppose you might consider wearing a crash helmet to dinner "overly cautious."

However, if you were Evan, you'd probably find it very appropriate. Reassuring. Necessary, even.

Gravity is not Evan's friend. This kid falls more than anyone I've ever met. A couple of Sundays ago I decided to count how many crashes he had during the week. By Monday evening I had counted 27, and I'm pretty sure I missed a few. I stopped keeping track. Too depressing.

A typical scenario might look like this: Evan walking along a completely even and straight sidewalk, shoes tied (ie, no shoelaces over which to trip), no obstacles in his path. He's singing a little song, happy as a lark, and boom! he's sprawled flat out with scraped knees and a bloody lip.

What happened?!

I don't know why my child can't remain upright. Perhaps he is just more sensitive to the earth's rotation than are the rest of us? Maybe he's like one of those goats that collapses when it is startled? Who knows. I suspect he's just rather uncoordinated.

He's been doing this since he became mobile. He used to spend a lot of time crying, and I used to spend a lot of time worrying. Now we take it in stride. Usually he pops up and smiles and says, "I'm all right!" and goes on his merry way. He has-- astoundingly-- survived four years without a single trip to the emergency room. The other day he tried to climb a tree, which I was pretty sure would end at the hospital, but he survived even that. He's lucky he's so indestructable. A weaker individual would have broken many bones and had some nasty internal bleeding by now.

Evidently he's starting to understand that he is a danger to himself, however. Why else would he have worn his bike helmet to dinner?

Hello, Marlon? Marlon Perkins?

Evan, jumping wildly up and down, was unable to control his excitement. "There's a snake in the driveway!" he kept repeating. I didn't really believe him, or thought maybe it was a garter snake (bad enough). But, yep. A snake. And, nope. Not a garter snake. It was coiled up, head flattened, striking out at my kids who didn't have the common sense to keep away. Rattlesnake.

Granted, it was only about eight or ten inches long. But! Wait! My husband says baby snakes are actually more dangerous than the grown-up kind. My first thought was to scoop it up with a shovel and dump it, I don't know, somewhere. But then I thought, "What if it can jump and bites me and I keel over and the kids are left alone?" I really thought this. Do snakes jump? Probably not, but you can't be too careful. Then I thought about getting our massive tractor lawnmower and running over the evil creature about 18 times, but decided that would take too long and that it would devour one of the kids before I could get the job done.

So we just went into the house. The kids are now forbidden to play outside barefoot.

Remember, I'm an Iowa girl. To me, "wildlife" means cows and rabbits. (Which can be very dangerous, by the way. If they are packing firearms.) I am not used to all these human-eating animals.

We have coyotes. They go crazy howling in the middle of the night. I had no idea what they were, but my Great Outdoorsman husband taught me. "Don't worry," he said. "They're at least a mile away." I think this was supposed to be comforting.

Turtles. Of all kinds, and sometimes they come into our garage. The troubling ones are the snapping turtles, which could easily break one of the kids in half. A few months ago, during Turtle Migration Season (I actually don't know if this exists, but there were a lot of turtles on the move) we saw a fine specimen about half a mile up the road. Easily two and a half feet across. I thought it was a small dinosaur.

Birds of prey. Constantly soaring over our house, looking very grand. The kids have been instructed not to lay motionless in the yard.

Oh, and the oversexed owl, who attempts to seduce us all night long. With a deep, intimate, whisper-in-your-ear voice. Not unlike Isaac Hayes. Except he's an owl.

Lizards. They don't look like gila monsters or komodo dragons, so I think we're okay here. But they still live in my yard.

To my knowledge, none of these creatures has thumbs, so they probably lack the ability to open doors and get into the house and swipe one of the children. Just in case, though, we have a security system. Which I'm pretty sure is intended to warn us of human invaders, but the animals seem like a more immediate threat.

But even the security system won't work against the snakes, who (no doubt) have located a drainpipe by which they can crawl into one of our toilets and wait in ambush to bite someone's hind end. I'm just not sure what to do about the snakes.

Maybe it's time for a baby gate

Here's what Caleb is saying: "Hey, Mom, Evan and I are just going to run upstairs for a bit. Thought we might play with marbles and those itty-bitty little Legos my brothers like to leave laying around everywhere. Oh, and hey: would you mind bringing up a screwdriver so I could check the outlets? You're a doll."

Okay, so I made that up. He can't talk. But: he is absolutely hell-bent on self-destruction lately.

I think my 9-month old has thrill issues.