I hate doing science. Um, I’ll try that again. We are trying to teach Rose to say, “I’m not fond of X.” Science experiments require the careful reading of technical directions, precision, close observation, and the careful recording of data—all things I’m not good at. So, I’m not fond of doing science. But, my daughter might like it, so I encouraged folks to get her science kits.

Last year’s was great. Her Ohio grandparents gave her a calendar with a different science project each month. She and Daddy made a turbine out of a wrapping paper tube and construction paper. Then she and I ran up and down the sidewalk seeing which size pinwheel spun the fastest.

This year’s had a Parent Choice award on the cover. Not this parent’s. I found the directions for adults difficult to follow, the ones for kids condescending. And all but one experiment bombed.

Failure 1. Rose and her uncle put a magnet in water. It was supposed to float and align north/south. It floated, but it determinedly stayed aligned with the kitchen and the windows, i.e., east/west, even when Grandpa the physics professor investigated it. Did the directions offer possible alternate possibilities? troubleshooting suggestions? No.

Success 1: Rose and Grandma made recycled paper. It was a little teeny piece of paper, but dang it, it worked.

Failure 2: This is where I take over, and things get really dicey. We had two sponge pellets wrapped in glycerin that we were supposed to put in warm water for 30 seconds at a time, measure to see how much they expanded, and then chart. The kit provided us with a chart from 1-7 centimeters. Except our gelatin barely melted, so the sponges barely expanded. Rose didn’t want to touch the sticky pills, so I was pulling them out of the water, trying to line them up with the ruler and see the difference between 1.7 and 1.9. The difference was probably my hand shaking.

Failure 3: We filled a glass with ice and measured it with the ruler in both inches and centimeters. Ten minutes later (as per the directions), we measured it again—no change. (To be fair, a half hour later, it had melted substantially.)

Failure 4: Really, really, I followed the directions exactly. We planted the wheat seeds and bean seeds in the peat moss, we watered them, we waited a week for them to sprout, so we could start charting their growth. Three weeks later John and I could see the seeds rotting and threw them in the yard waste.

Failure 5: I thought these directions seemed a little wacky, but hey, they are the scientists. We put a piece of plastic in one thing of peat moss and a small piece of lettuce in the other. In one week, the directions said, the plastic would still be there and the lettuce gone through the magic of compost. One week later, Rose pulled them out—exactly as she had put them in.

I do a great job mixing food coloring, baking soda, and vinegar. We’ll stick to that for awhile.