Adult Report Night was Memorial Day weekend, making our new Family Report Night scheduled the following Sunday. But Mommy's bout of the stomach flu foiled those plans, so tonight, with Grandma & Grandpa Baker in town, we had our second Family Report Night.
First on deck was Elaine. Holding her Dora the Explorer doll as her visual aid, she sat on the ottoman in front of everyone (grandparents included, this time) and told us who Dora's friends are, who her family is, how she visits places like volcanoes, and how Dora the Explorer is good and an "Elaine show." She enjoyed reporting so much she wanted to interject in the middle of Daddy's report to say things she forgot to add.
Dad went next with his laptop on the ottoman showing a photo of a woman swimming underwater with the "telltale" bubbles indicating that she farted. This was the first of many visual images that helped explain to us what farting is all about (nitrogen, carbon dioxide, oxygen, methane, & hydrogen sulfide), who does it (everyone, including many animals with elephants farting the most), why they stink (sulfur in hydrogen sulfide), which foods cause the stinkiest farts (beans, cabbage, cheese, eggs--all sulfur-rich foods), and how they can be flammable (watch out!). Since our "adult" Report Night does not always guarantee a family-friendly topic, Mike chose well with this "family only" topic. (Elaine especially loved the photo of the fart on fire.)
Jackson had many visual aids with him, which Dad lovingly helped bring over to the ottoman area. The laptop screen was frozen on the famous blue words, "A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away..." He showed us his zip lock bag full of Lego Star Wars guys, his small toy bin full of Galactic Heroes, and his clear storage bin full of Star Wars the Clone Wars action figures. He also drew a picture of the most popular Star Wars characters in the style of Diary of a Wimpy Kid. (See the entry below for a link to this style of drawing.) He closed with a entertaining video:
This is precisely when the pizza man showed up, signaling our break. Jackson returned with another video after dinner, which you may view here.
Grandpa Baker, who was originally going to use his "free pass" and just enjoy listening, decided to do his report on laminin. ("Laminin?" you ask? Yes. Just wait.) We pulled up a video of speaker Louie Giglio, who is a Christian motivational speaker primarily to college kids. The video, like laminin, speaks for itself:
Now I knew what Grandma Baker's report was going to be on (the kids did not), and I planned on sharing her visual aid. However we were all too stuffed from dinner to dive into Grandma's (tasty) report just then, so I went. I used the same report from the adult Report Night and pulled up my power point presentation on sphenopalatine ganglioneuralgia. Naturally, a topic like this was a bit over the children's heads, so I breezed through the more scientific terminology and got straight to the layman's term: brain freeze. In short: brain freeze (or ice cream headache or sphenopalatine ganglionueralgia) is caused when the sphenopalatine nerve above the roof of your mouth quickly becomes cold. This "tricks" the brain into thinking you're in a cold environment which then restricts the blood vessels in the brain. The pain is caused when the warm blood forces the vessels back open. (I got most of this info from scienceblogs.com.) To avoid brain freeze, eat slowly with small bites or sips. If you do experience pain, put your tongue against the roof of your mouth to warm up that poor, confused sphenopalatine nerve.
Finally it was Grandma's turn. We all sat around the kitchen table with empty glasses and spoons. She gave us an interesting history on root beer floats (otherwise known as brown cows, black cows, and spiders), and then proceeded to show us the proper technique for making them (soda first, with the glass titled; ice cream; then a little more soda). In the 1800's a soda shop ran out of ice. The shop next door was an ice cream parlor, so the soda shop owner had the bright idea to cool everyone's drinks with ice cream instead of ice. It was officially introduced in Philadelphia on our country's 150th birthday bash, but only the teenagers showed interest. Eventually as it caught on, the government felt they needed to regulate the use of floats since root beer was used medicinally at that time. Therefore root beer floats were banned on Sundays. In order to serve delicious summer treats on this particular day of the week, legend has it that the ice cream sundae was invented.
And now you know the rest of the story....
(Stay tuned next month for more family topics!)
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