Science Conversations

Sweet Son has this habit of asking vague questions such as "How does it work?" When I don't know what "it" he is asking about. This just leads to frustration. One day after 20 minutes of trying to figure it out, I gave up. I told him I had no idea what he was referring to so I couldn't answer. About 15 minutes later (we had all moved on and were doing other things), Sweet Son comes up to me and says, "Mommy, earlier I was referencing the sensor on Daddy's car that tells it when to turn on the windshield wipers." Then I could answer the question. I was impressed with the word reference though.


I have a refillable air freshener in my car and the kids told me it needed to be changed. I changed the sugar cookie scent for watermelon lemonade. Sweet Daughter ask me what makes it smell. I explained that it was called an aromatic compound. She wanted to know what's in an aromatic compound. Naturally, I explained that most aromatic compounds are based off a benzene base. Sweet Son asked what benzene is, so I explained the circle of 6 carbons with alternating single double bonding where one or two hydrogen have been replaced by something else in order to make it aromatic. Then of course we got into carbon being the basic building blocks of everything, the varying strength of single, double, and triple bonding (as related to legos being building blocks to make everything and some connections stronger than others depending on how many circles are hooked). You know, typical car conversations. I'm just waiting for this to come out at school or in music or someplace.