My Little Scientist (or 'Titch is growing up')

I'm sure she's not unique, but Melchett is quite....special :)

It's funny, she's always loved pink, dressing up and girly things...but she's always done it with a twist. She has a voracious fascination about life and how things work. We're constantly having to watch her in shops even now, because she HAS to touch everything (and not just touch, she'll pick things off shelves, turn them upside down, shake them...until we spot her and shout, causing her to nearly drop them).

Ok, so like any little girl, she's played with her dolls...

But the dolls always seem to come off a lot worse for it. (This is 'Dirty Baby'...yes, the doll was actually called that BEFORE this incident, and don't worry it's only that Dirty Baby decided she wanted to eat some mud pie, nothing worse).

And like most little girls, she loved playing with her tea sets...

Same result really. As you can see there's a pair of larger feet involved in this photo too, Goth Child was partially responsible for 'the potion'...that they both seriously expected Mum to try!

Every day some how this would happen...

Then one day, Melchett had her 7th birthday and the world of pretending became slightly more important to her than the world of sticking her fingers in things to see what would happen.

'Schools' became the new big thing...

You'll notice on Ms. Melchett's desk there is a class register. Each teddy had a name and to say "Good morning Ms. Melchett, good morning everyone" when their name was called.

And 'schools' carried on as a favourite pastime when we moved to America, because not only was schooling a whole new wonderfully exciting and slightly alien world that Melchett had to work out for herself but she also loved/loves it.

And now she is 8, and still fascinated about how the world works, and in 2nd Grade, with a new teacher...and she's a....SCIENTIST and a TEACHER!

Words cannot explain how exciting this is for an 8 year old, who like her uncle adores taking things apart and then forgetting how to put them back together again (no, I'm not bitter at all dear Brother that you broke my Tiny Tears, well not much...it's ony been 3 and a half decades now and they tell me I'm getting better every day...). Sorry, did I just go off a rant there, I do apologise.

Aaaayway, so guess what Melchett wants to be when she grows up now. Actually, it's still a drummer with a rock band, but a close second is, duh duh durrrr:

And this is what she apparently thinks scientists look like...I think she's been watching too many movies...and Doctor Who...

By the way, don't you just love the red shoes and the pens. That's my daughter, the beauty is in the detail :)

So everyday, she comes home from school and shuts herself away in her bedroom laboratory, and conducts experiments or reads the multitude of science books we have to get her from the local library. She's slightly obsessed at the moment with the workings of the human body especially the respiratory and circulatory systems, look...

Or as she likes to call it 'cicily storey'. All of the above has been done by her in the 'lab' by the way. This isn't a school book she's brought home....she's doing this on her own, for fun.

I'm not totally sure she'll be winning the Nobel Prize for Chemistry just yet though...let me translate her 'experiment' (which she did actually conduct, step by step):

P: What will happen when you put raisins in apple juice and water?

T: 1. raisins, 2. apple juice, 3. water, 4. 2 cups

W: What will happen?

A. (circled to show M believed this would happen) The water will turn into apple juice, or

B. It will stay the same.

C: (conclusion) I was right.

Adorable....we did have to have a bit of a conversation, as tactfully as possible so as not to dent her genius conclusion, that actually the raisins are a dried fruit and so actually the water changed colour and tasted a bit grapey because of this, it didn't actually technically turn from water into apple juice.

But I'm hanging on to these moments, because I know she's going to be 13 before I know it and asking if she can dissect a cow on the dining room table! Well, if I know my Melchett...