Teachable Moments

One of the things we do as parents is try to use every opportunity to teach our kids. Yesterday I wanted to make chocolate chip cookies, so I had Emma help me. She read the ingredients, then we read the recipe. She helped me measure everything and she learned about fractions (she would read it "three slash four"). What did we take away from this teachable moment? Don't let mom bake cookies. I can make a cupcake look like a golf course or an ice cream cone, but I can't make a chocolate chip cookie to save my life. Even though they are flat, crispy and greasy, somehow I think they may still all get eaten.

We had another teachable moment last night. The space shuttle was being launched which hubby just loves watching, and Emma shares in his enthusiasm. You should see him, he's just like a little kid again---"Wow, that is so cool!" He almost became an aerospace engineer instead of a chemical engineer; I could totally see him as an astronaut in another parallel life. I was telling Emma that there are female astronauts and maybe someday she could be one. Emma told hubby that if she was an astronaut, she would take him into outer space with her. A dream come true.

So we watched the shuttle do their pre-launch checks (there was a pin missing on a door/hatch that they determined wouldn't be a problem), watched items be pulled away from the ship in preparation for launch, heard them do the countdown, and watched the ship blast off. Emma and hubby were excited, so Leah faked her excitement as well. As soon as the ship was just a dot in the sky Leah says, "After the ship is in outer space, can we watch Pucca Pucca party?" She may not be following the same path as her sister as an astronaut.



p.s. I don't even fully know what Pucca is--I know it is a cartoon that we don't watch, but the girls see commercials for it and sing a little "Pucca Pucca dance party" song. Huh?