Prussia Blue

     So finally the whole Christmas thing is done and over for me.  My ex sister in law came up with the kids for a bit yesterday so we could exchange gifts and my nephew is staying over until I think sometime tomorrow, I'm not entirely sure.  In keeping with a tradition my aunt started, I bought him a chemistry set this year.  He also received a bunch of Legos, a Wii game, and a foam-disc shooting frog gun.  After dinner he couldn't wait to try out his new chem set.  The sets they sell today aren't nearly as cool as they were over 20 years ago (something about hazardous materials and safety issues, I have no idea.  Other than a small fire, I never had a problem).  Science in general has always been a subject that's come easily to me, especially chemistry.  I had to take a lab science a few years ago when I returned to college and no surprise, I took chem and easily passed with an A.  The labs were challenging, but I feel like a total idiot trying to understand this set's instruction manual.  Most experiments are written in a way that are easy to understand: the hypothesis, what materials you need, a brief diagram of what the set up looks like, and basic instructions how to carry out the experiment, followed by the actual lesson you should have learned.  This set more or less mashes all the components (minus any diagrams) into a few pages in such a nonsensical way, you have to read it 3 or 4 times just to figure out everything you need for any experiment.  So we set up a litmus solution that will be ready by tonight, created a substance called Prussia Blue (google it if you don't have a clue), and created invisible ink.  The ink experiment was kinda cool.  Start with the mixture, write out a message, dab with another mixture to see the message clearly, and use a third to make it disappear again.  Then repeat until it's boring.  I was pretty impressed just how quickly he picked up the general concepts and how meticulous he was about carrying out the experiments.  At this rate, it looks like I'll be putting money away for a few months to buy him the larger, more challenging (and cooler) set.  Today's lessons will be with the litmus solution, acids, bases, basic electrical concepts, and maybe a few others.  He has a bit of a short attention span with all the new stuff he received.
     I must also say I'm pretty proud and impressed with him.  I've been preparing boxes and such for donation and asked him if he wanted to go through his toys here and donate anything he didn't want.  He set aside almost half of his toys for donation.  Now I have to find either 2 boxes, or a bigger box to put them all in.  I can't wait for the charity to come by on Saturday to get rid of all that stuff.  My office has been taken over by close to 2 dozen boxes marked for donation.  It'll feel like I'll be starting the new year with a much cleaner slate and it's something that I need.  But for now, it's time to get a few things done while he eats lunch.