Amethyst Addict or Child Services

This morning the minis and I were having quite a big time doing science projects. Before you get all eye roll-y and think I'm trying to be a show off Mama, let me clarify. I am leaving for a 4 day girls' trip to Vail on Wednesday (seriously, my friends spoil me rotten) and the minis leave for Granny Camp on July 7 for a month. So needless to say, I am filling just a few days with activities.

After we filled latex balloons with baking soda and vinegar, tied them shut and watched them expand and explode...fun times...Jack had another idea. He really wanted to open and start a crystal growing kit that I had been saving for a day just like today. I agreed after making sure we had all the paraphernalia required. Damn right those kits never come with all the things you need and you don't know that until after you've promised to do it.

We spread all the stuff out on the table and the boys decided to grow amethyst crystals, because "they are mostly Clemson purple". Um, well duh.

Except, 8 year old Jack can't really say "Am-e-thyst". It's a tongue twister even for an adult who's had nothing to drink but 2 lattes and a TAB.

So when he started referring to the experiment as making "meth crystals" I was not surprised. I was however laughing hysterically on the inside. I didn't want to laugh and make a big deal about it, because it was early in the day and even the Nancy Reagan in me didn't feel like having a Just Say NO! to drugs conversation. I bit a hole in my cheek trying not to laugh. He was so earnest.

So I let him run with it.

He proceeded to ask me a million questions about the "meth crystals" he was growing. Was the "meth" expensive? Why did we have to cook the "meth" on the stove? (there was a step that involved boiling water and adding some chemical in a saucepan) Would "meth" crystals blow up if we let them cook too long? Can you find "meth" in the ground?

Needless to say, I can't wait until he goes to the country club up North with my parents next month and someone asks him about his summer...

And he tells them his Mama in Georgia taught him how to "cook meth" and keeps it on the windowsill next to the little green plants.