Air “Pressure” Magic!

My name is Tracy and I am a mom of a preteen. There, I said it. I know pretty soon I will be admitting that I am a parent of a teenager but for now, I can own the fact that I am in the “pre” years.

At this point in parenting a preteen daughter, I can say that I am now highly attuned to the outside pressures she is facing today like should she mask, should she have a phone, should she have a Tik Tok account? When I was a kid, the pressure was, should I own a pair of Girbaud jeans.

I’m proud to say that she is handling the pressures of being 11-1/2 a lot better than I did. I insisted on sporting a permed pixie cut and wearing red glasses, neon banded braces, and teal corduroy overalls. (Trust me on this one, I’ve got pictures to prove it and Girbaud jeans didn’t come until later on in my teenage wardrobe!) Thank goodness my daughter’s mom won’t allow her to sport the same neon colored nonsense she did in the 90’s! 😉

So while I continue to wait for the day I am no longer completely “cool”, I was pleasantly surprised when she asked to do a science experiment with her. I literally jumped at the chance, fell out of my chair, and brushed off my science reference books. But despite all of my experiment suggestions, they were not interesting (or cool) enough, so I shoved the books toward her, brooded, and growled, “Here, you pick one.”

This is one she picked to do with her dear ol’ mom… and it ended up being the most fun of all. Dare I say… it was magic! 😉

What you need: a glass of water and an index card.

What you do: 

• Fill water up to the rim of the glass
• Place the index card over it
• Turn the glass upside down and remove your hand holding the index card (Pro tip: stand over the sink in the unlikely event that this doesn’t work the first time!)

What’s the science? The index card stays in place is because the air pressure outside of the glass is greater than the pressure of the water in the glass. I guess you could say it was a kind of air pressure magic!

So for now, I’m going to ignore the outside pressures of the “pre” years and focus on the fun when my preteen asks me to keep being a “science mom”. Maybe she won’t always think I’m cool when the teenage years arrive but I will thoroughly enjoy being the goofy mom that embarrasses her in front of her friends. I think I’ll enjoy being THAT kind of mom even more. 😉