Malone gets scientific
The child is most definitely suddenly six. By six I mean older, confident, and well… a bit cocky. Overnight she has morphed into Little Miss Chatback. Every sentence seems to start with “No Mummy, it’s…” I am being corrected at every turn. After Mummy being a bit ‘mumsy’ for years, I am having to wake up! I’m being corrected about everything; I’m no longer sure if my name is even correct. It is Dumbo, right? Whereas before a “well, Earth is a planet in space” would have easily answered her question, I’m now practically having to explain dark matter, anti-matter and light years. Give it a few months and I think she will be explaining it to me. I wish I was a scientist. I don’t mean Brian ‘like you, just a bit more sciency’ Cox, I mean like proper science. Y’know, in a lab wearing a white coat. I wish I could go back to school and swap the art for science (ignoring the fact that I got an E for biology and As in Art). I would love to spend my days being overly logical and critical and analytic. (I’m still hopeful there is a job for me that appreciates the skills my boyfriend finds impossible in me.) When I was a teenager, being creative wasn’t considered essential for a scientist – now that it is, I could have stared at tubes in labs with my imagination trying out all sorts of combinations.
“Before, “well, Earth is a planet in space” would have easily answered her question”
Thing is… I don’t really get a lot of what they are saying in science documentaries unless I pause them for a minute and absorb the information. My mind is not quick enough to understand huge science theories at speed, it needs to breathe in the theories. It feels a bit the same with a six-year-old. I can’t keep up; she has accelerated overnight and I have stayed the same. My brain is having to think, not just quickly, but really carefully and really deeply about every answer I give her. Because not only do I want her to learn the correct answers, but if I get one tiny bit of it wrong, I will pay for it. I will get lost in loops of questioning hell, where I’m backtracking and scaling walls to get out of questions I can’t answer. Questions like “why doesn’t the moon fall on our heads, Mummy?” A year ago I could have gotten away with “sticky tape”. Or even “because it doesn’t, now go to sleep”. Now I’m having to explain Newton’s theory of gravity, elliptical orbits and the interaction of centrifugal and centripetal forces. I put her to bed and want to put my head in the oven. (Luckily the oven is broken.) Not only does my child want to know everything, she seems to already know everything too, and gets really agitated if I correct her on anything. Tell me, is this a phase? I want my five year old back!
Illustration: Jake McDonald www.shakeyillustrations.blogspot.com
