I am quoting someone else when I say “I hate science fair” but I sort of do… oh dear I am already moving into the glow of the baby being delivered and forgetting the pain.

It was so painful. Not the initial part when my darling enthusiastically got the idea and jumped totally into it. The seed was enrolling in an Asthma trial. It became interesting, she got out books on asthma and actually read them due to interest, she was motivated.

We dissected a cows lung which was genuinely interesting to me as well, perhaps more so. We took photos.

We started an actual experiment- this was the beginning of a down hill slide – not the running up and down the drive part but the not really understanding why, she had less “buy in.” This was totally my fault for butting in with the experiment and of not doing an experiment that showed a difference between someone with asthma and someone without- I went with what was possible… and as an adult with a science background a non result is a result, but maybe not so for kids. Or maybe it was the enthusiasm her adults had for playing with the equipment. The graphs were like work, despite her deciding like me that she likes a good graph.

The hating came when it became time to publish. H was clear that part of the attraction of the science fair was producing something like she had seen at last years science fair (by high school kids) and she had strong ideas about audience, presentation and having to provide something to do. But when it came to actually putting pen to paper anything was a distraction, everything was wrong. She felt it important that everything was typed so needed me to type. According to H my attitude was terrible- impatient, according to me her concentration was terrible, she’d do anything to not do it. The idea of getting it over and done was foriegn. Having a deadline was so stressful for both of us however no deadline would have meant not doing anything…. I bribed her with Lego to get it done before the the deadline. How does one get good habits. I remember sitting outside the hand in box, writing up until the point someone came to collect our essays. Like her I had done the reading, thought about what I wanted to say but just hated putting pen to paper. It was interesting watching her with the presentation too, everything had to be perfect, so much screwed up paper. Sometimes it would paralyze her. I would have to write stuff in the wrong tone of voice to spark her laughter before she would loosen up to even dictate to me.

The hate is faded somewhat after this morning when H got up early to work on it, going through her to do list, being the lead, the one who knows everything and totally knuckled down and then she stood back and was so proud of what she had done, wanting to show it off. And there is her summary .

In summary: I feel better about having asthma. I have learnt so much doing this. I never would have thought to read books on asthma before and I now understand asthma so much more although it has  also led to more questions. Do other animals get asthma? This is just one of many questions that I will endeavour to answer eventually. Overall I am satisfied with most of my work. Dissecting the cow’s lung was great fun and I enjoyed experimenting with our breathing tools. I like a good graph and I enjoyed learning how to do a box and whisker plot.

Of course she also said “it feels so good to do something optional” as soon as the pens were away!!

Of course we have her joint project to press on with. There were tears last night about letting her friends down but that has not resulted in action… I am crying on the inside.

she won an award!!