“What is the big idea with the baby’s science project?!!” I stormed upstairs early in the morning, and rudely woke up my husband with my barking.

“What…” he flopped in our bed, then his eyes popped open.

I stood eying him with my arms crossed, “The science project?”.

“Oh…that….” clearly he was trying to gather his wits to confront my hostility. “Yeah…don’t worry, there is going to be science in her science project….probably it will have to do with energy…”

“So, the science project will qualify under physics?” me, sarcastically.

“YES! Physics.” hubby. He is shameless.

I rolled my eyes.

Two weeks ago, my 10-year-old came home all excited that our school’s annual science fair is back. It was taken away last year due to budget cuts.

I had handed off the baby’s science project to my hubby to manage, and paid very little attention to it.

Big mistake!

Early Monday morning, I happened to see the baby’s science project proposal laying on top of her backpack. I decided to take a peek, and saw that the project required a pumpkin, rubber bands, and protective goggles.

“Why do you need a pumpkin and protective goggles for your science project?” I asked the baby.

“We are going to explode a pumpkin with rubber bands!!” the baby announced with unrestrained excitement.

In the past, I had been the one that helped design the kids’ science fair projects. We have had many highly reputable projects, such as an earthquake project where we got permission from the Tech Museum to use their earthquake simulator to conduct experiments, and one year, we had built our own windmill model that powered real light bulbs.

I looked at the baby with a deep frown, and asked calmly, “What science are we supposed to learn from exploding a pumpkin?”

The baby gave me a blank stare, then finally said in a weak voice, “Science is fun…”

The science project proposal was due that day, so it was too late for me to intervene.

However, mother nature will intervene and insist that this project be modified.

My Einstein’s had not considered that there are no pumpkins at this time of the year.