Wind experiments and a spray can of cheese, and thus a love of science begins

I’ve always been a scientist at heart. From a very early age I was fascinated with space and biology and just about anything I could get my hands on. Carl Sagan and Nikola Tesla were my Michael Jordan and Wayne Gretzky. My days were like the TV show “Mythbusters” only with less explosions. And after the last few weeks, I can see my boys are well on their way to follow in my footsteps.

The first time I saw this scientific inclination was just after the recent 40 days and nights of rain. The sun was out, the windows were down and the car filled with cut-grass-scented air. On the highway, wind buffeted us violently, but we were all so happy to see the sun again no one cared. My two oldest boys were in the very back of our station wagon, watching the world speed away from them. The air flowing into the car circulates wildly in the back, and the boys love it: their hair flies this way and that and they giggle as we travel. So much better than the bickering I hear when the windows are up and they’re bored.

An empty shopping bag was in the back of the car with them, and the wind caught it, showing us all exactly how wildly the air was flowing. It whipped around the boys, faster and faster until it wrapped itself around one of their seat belts. This caused them to erupt with laughter, grab the bag and send it flying. Again and again they got the bag into the air until the poor bag finally escaped their torture and jumped into the back seat, hiding down under my chair.

The collective sigh that signaled all the fun in the world was dead echoed through the car until Big Bits, our 6-year-old, grabbed some paper from his backpack and sent it into the air. It flew about too, not quite as crazily as the bag but it was still fun. Someone in Big Bit’s kindergarten class had recently taught him about paper airplanes, which of course he loved (what kid doesn’t?), but he still wasn’t 100 percent sure about how to fold paper into an airplane shape. That didn’t stop him from randomly folding paper and seeing if it flew any better. This met with varying degrees of success. Little Bits, who will enthusiastically tell you he’s 4 if you give him half a second, did his big brother one better and just wadded up the paper into a ball. This didn’t work at all.

But that didn’t stop him in the least. Everything in their reach was tossed into the air, from toy cars to their shoes. Little Bits held his teddy bear up in the air several times, each time dropping it to see if his little friend would fly around the car. I think the little bear’s arms and legs wiggling in the wind gave him hope he might just take flight. I knew the observation stage had ended and they were ready for more advanced tests when they found an empty chip bag, and it flew around nearly as well as the shopping bag. And they started preparing for future funding requests when Big Bits said, “Dad, can we stop for some chips? I’m really hungry.”

This wasn’t the only time their minds have shown signs of scientific curiosity. One day at the store I happened to see a can of spray cheese, that cheese-like “food” substance that comes in a can and is easily spread on crackers. I remembered liking it when I was a kid, so why not spread the joy to the next generation?

I took it home and let each of the kids have some on a cracker. Tiny Bits, our 18-month-old, took the first one and although none actually made it into his mouth, he did have fun with it (took me forever to get it out of his hair). Little Bits took one, barely licked it and politely put it back on the table. I don’t know if he’s the smartest one of us, but he might have the best taste.

To Big Bits, this was a revelation, a whole new world of flavor opened up before him. “I like slimy cheese!” he shouted several times. I had to cut him off before he made himself sick. It was time for bed anyway. As he was brushing his teeth, staring at his reflection in the mirror, he suddenly turned to me.

“Dad, slimy cheese causes freckles.” I stopped getting Tiny Bits dressed and just stared at him.

“What?!” The incredulous “What?!” is said a lot around our house.

“Well, I like slimy cheese and Little Bits doesn’t.”

“Yup,” I agreed.

“And I have freckles and Little Bits doesn’t.” I couldn’t argue with him on this one, at least this close to bed time. I would have liked to sit him down and explain the truth but when our roommate told him she liked slimy cheese too (and, of course, she has freckles as well) that gave him all the proof he needed. Seeing was believing.

I’m going to keep encouraging their apparent love of science and maybe one of them will be the next Einstein or Hawking. Or, if we’re really lucky, the next generation of Mythbusters.

Originally published on Stltoday.com

Does my baby see through walls? Cool.

Desperate for spring air, we opened the window in our bedroom the other night, despite the calls for the Storm of the Century of the Week to come through town and kill us all again. I fell asleep quite happily with lungs filled with fresh air and awoke to the sound of the rain — a gentle rain pitter-pattering on the awning above our window. The only number my horrible eyesight could make out on the clock was 4, but I didn’t need the clock, it just felt unnecessarily early. I’d been awake for almost five minutes when the first noises came filtering in from our boys’ room.

It was a whiny-moan, and I could tell it was Tiny Bits, our 18-month-old. He’s woken me up in the middle of the night enough times for me to recognize his cry anywhere. It wasn’t a nightmare-induced scream, but the moan of a little boy only half awake and (hopefully) about to go back to sleep. I lay in bed, waiting for a full-throated bellow to come, but he stayed silent. I tried to go back to sleep, the gentle rain my soundtrack.

A sudden intensification of the storm got my eyes opened once more, and Tiny Bits started whining again. I waited, seeing if he would calm himself down, but this one sounded real. I slipped my glasses on and started to get up. Suddenly the sounds from the Bits’ room ceased. The storm had also settled down and everything seemed right with the world again. I went to put my glasses back on the nightstand and try to get back to sleep, but the moment my glasses hit the table, there came another half-hearted moan from the other room.

Figuring, surely, he has got to be up now, I slipped my glasses back on and started to get out of bed. But, once again, there was silence. Not wanting to risk actually waking a 75 percent sleeping baby, I lay back down and took my glasses off again. And as soon as my glasses hit the wood of the table, there was a cry from the other room. Glasses on, no crying. Glasses off, weak moaning and crying.

Surely he couldn’t hear my glasses hitting the wood when I laid them down; I couldn’t hear them. Just to be sure, I laid them down on a paperback book; instant moaning-whining. Was I on Candid Camera or what? He either had me on closed circuit TV or he could see through walls. OH MY GOODNESS, HE CAN SEE THROUGH WALLS! This is awesome, my son is a mutant from The X-Men! I am the coolest geek dad in the world.

I tried an experiment: I lay down with my glasses on and tried to think of who would play me in the movie Tiny Bits: The Real Weapon X. Sure enough, not another peep was heard that night.  I just slept with my glasses on.

The next morning, everything seemed normal: Tiny Bits couldn’t see through walls (nor did he seem to have extra acute hearing — he went on ignoring me just as well as he always does), I couldn’t find a hidden camera in my room, and Allen Funt didn’t jump out of my bathroom and say “Smile, you’re on Candid Camera!” “The Great Baby Sleeping Weirdness” would have to go down in history with all the great unsolved mysteries: The Bermuda Triangle, Loch Ness and how anyone makes it through middle school alive.

We could solve them, but do we really want to? Somethings humans just aren’t ready to know yet.

Originally published on stltoday.com