Sunday, February 28, 2016

Science Fair 2016 - February 25, 2016

One of the difficult things about losing someone that you love, is that time doesn't stand still because you are grieving.  You may barely be able to get out of bed, but there are still regular life things to do.  I guess that is good, in a way.  You have to keep getting up.  You have to keep getting dressed.  You have to keep feeding the dog.  You just have to.  If you didn't have all of those "to dos" you may be in worse shape, I guess.  Thankfully, my in-laws are super stars and stayed with our kids for several days after my Mom passed away.  Many, many friends brought meals in those first days/weeks as well.  That was amazingly helpful!  People were quick to take as much as possible off of my plate, and I have never felt such gratitude! 

We were knee deep in the busiest part of the school year when my Mom died.  There were projects, and papers, and tests galore.  Oi-vey!  I knew that their teachers would understand, but I also feared getting behind and never being able to catch up.  In God's great mercy, He had prompted me to encourage Clayton to get his Science Fair project done early.  Thank you, Lord, that that was out of the way!

Clayton's project was comparing the germs in the human mouth to those in the canine mouth.  It was 100% his idea, and he did a great job!  I did learn that growing bacteria on petri dishes is tricky without an incubator.  We tried a desk lamp, but it wasn't warm enough.  We tried a heating pad, but it auto shut off after 2 hours.  Finally, we put the petri dishes in a box with an electric blanket and a candy thermometer.  It still had an auto shut off, but it was set to every 10 hours.  So, we would just flip the switch off and back on a few times a day.  It worked out the best of our options, for sure.  :)


It was a fun first Science Fair for my boy!  So proud of him for persevering even during a difficult time.

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