The 3rd Grade Science Expo & a Prayer

Today was the 3rd Grade Science Expo at the kids’ school. This was a humongous event for Kyle and Owen. Humongous (I don’t think I’ve ever used that word on the blog, ever. So, that should tell you just how humongous this was.)

The theme was “Simple Machines” but… let me tell you… there was nothing simple about this. The 3rd graders had worked on their projects for months (literally), the pressure had been mounting for the past several weeks, and it all culminated in today. The lead-up, anticipation, and drama that was the 3rd Grade Science Expo was beyond belief. There were tears shed, there were projects done and re-done, there was a lot of Duct tape, and many glue sticks, used. For a whole variety of reasons, that I won’t even go into, it all got sort of big… instead of simple.

Everyone (and I mean, everyone: students, teachers, and… probably most of all… parents) could not wait for this day to come and go. But let me just say this: none of them — and I mean, none of them — have anything on us. Because none of them have TWINS. Twin boys. Twin boys who hate anything that could possibly in any way be conceived as even slightly artsy-crafty. And trust me, a ‘Science Expo Project’ is conceived (no matter how much you intend it to not be) as a little bit artsy-crafty by this category of kid. Because it involves, at a minimum, scissors and glue. So, use your imagination to conjure up what the past few weeks have been like for us. Times two.

This morning, from 8:10-9am, parents, grandparents, and several of the younger classes, visited the 3rd Grade Science Expo. It was wonderful. The place was alive with science and chock full of proud, confident 3rd grade boys and girls. It was brilliant young minds at work. It was a delight to witness. You could have easily never realized the weeks of agony that had been behind it.

Meera’s kindergarten class attended, and the highlight of the whole thing for me was seeing her bring her whole posse of little friends straight to her big brothers’ projects. There was something awesome in seeing her so proudly show off her brothers (and their science) to her friends. Her friends were looking up at K & O with idolizing, amazed eyes, and Meera was the proudest kid in the whole place (including the 3rd grade kids who were actually presenting). And, of course, Meera did what we are all known to usually do: she stood tall and smiled genuinely proudly, and never mentioned to any of her friends the fits and sobs and hours-of-doing-and-re-doing and the out-and-out-tantrums that she’d observed over the past few weeks from her brothers.

The 3rd Grade Science Expo is now officially over. And I’ll gloss over it and move on (it is kind of like childbirth— you have the baby and then sort of forget everything that led up to it). But… really… it was a big experience, and we learned a lot. Mainly, I learned what we’re in for in the foreseeable future. There’s no stopping it — the projects will keep coming, and coming, and coming, like waves on a shore. And we have two kids on our hands for whom anything even verging on crafty (and definitely anything that involves scissors and/or glue and/or magic markers) is… well…. kinda sorta painful. And… well… they don’t really seem to be outgrowing that anytime soon.

MY POST-EXPO PRAYER: “Dear God, Please help me to get through the next ten years of school projects with these twin boys. Please give me the fortitude and the double patience and the double stamina that are gonna be required to get them —and me— through it. And please God, please help them to learn the foundational concepts that the more Duct Tape isn’t necessarily the better, and that just a little glue goes a long way. Amen.”