Kitchen Science and Public Humiliation

Public Humiliation

Last night I had the pleasure of going out to dinner with about 20 friends.  Although Nathan was out of town at SICOM, I was super excited to get out, sans kids, with other adults and enjoy dinner without catching drinks, coloring place mats, wiping faces, and shushing whines.  One of the, um, older Sunday School classes at church arranged to watch all our kids while they prepped for Sunday's Thanksgiving meal, giving several of us younger adults a chance to go out together.

I really had a lot of fun!  We were loud, silly, and happy.  The food was fantastic.  I ordered shrimp scampi with fettucini alfredo.

But sometime between my last bite and the arrival of the checks, my head started to hurt.

By now I recognize this hurt.  It's not exactly a headache.  Before I even realize what I'm doing, I'll find myself rubbing my eyebrows.  Bad sign.  Then my tummy started to protest.  My hands started to shake.  And I started to feel far away from myself.  Auras danced across my vision.  I made several back-and-forth trips to the ladies' room, hoping to settle my stomach, but I knew what this meant: I was going to faint.  I down-played it as best I could, but it was clear to those around me that I was not well.  These sensations tend to ebb and flow, so I'd start to think I was through it, but then another swell would overtake me.

Feeling faint's bad enough, but if you've ever felt that way, you know your tummy doesn't feel great either.  Although blacking out in public is bad, I'm less worried about passing out in public than I am about hurling in public!  Eventually I laid down on a nearby booth, muttering apologies to the employees and fretting at how rude I appeared.  Faces hovered above from time to time, seeing if I was OK, waiting for me to be lucid enough to head back to the church.  I made it to a friend's vehicle, rolled down the window (it's similar to feeling car sick), and kept my eyes closed for the ride back.

I had tunnel vision by then, but I found my way to a couch back in the youth wing.  Tovi was worried, Oren was wound up, and both wanted to snuggle.  People occupied my kids, brought me Gatorade, and then insisted I stay the night with them.  Angola's about 30 minutes from our home in Garrett, so it was highly unlikely that I could get me and the boys home safely.  I didn't think I could even manage to RIDE that far if someone else drove us.  This family has 5 kids of their own, so adding my 2 wouldn't be too much of an imposition.  I still felt like a burden, but I was grateful.  I cranked the AC on myself during the short ride to their house.  Tahlia, a saint of a friend, set out jammies for all of us and got my boys ready for bed.  I texted Nate, then laid down with Oren beside me and Tovi in the next bed.

Although snuggling Oren overnight results to fitful sleep at best, I was so relieved to not have to be alone while so unsteady.  After being horizontal all night, I was well enough in the morning to enjoy some pancakes (thanks again, Tahlia!) and get the boys home.  They played in the playroom down the hall while I laid in bed.  I think God prompted especially cooperative behavior and positive attitudes. I'm still woozy if I'm upright too long, and experience says this sensation will probably stick around for a few more days.  But I'm improving.  Thank God for an easy work week coming up!

Kitchen Science

Under healthier circumstances, when Nate's out of town I try to do something special with the boys.  I had originally planned to make glow-in-the-dark slime with them, and around lunchtime I decided to give it a shot anyway.  The process is pretty quick, so I figured I could fit it in before being upright long enough to bring back the woozies.

I found the recipe here, linked on Pinterest.  We made some minor adjustments simply due to my curiosity when I discovered so many colors of gel glue (WITH GLITTER!!) at Wal-Mart.

Here's what we did.

-We set out one bowl for each color we planned to make.
-In each bowl, we poured 1 cup of warm water, 4 oz glue (I estimated--each bottle was 6 oz, so I eyeballed 4), and 2-3 teaspoons of glow paint from the acrylic craft paint aisle.  The original recipe calls for food coloring, but since we used colored glue, I used food coloring only when we wanted colors we didn't have paint for (like red--the paint was pink, so I added red food coloring).
-Then the recipe said to mix the paint, glue, and water.  We found you have to mix WELL or the recipe won't work.
-Next, in a separate bowl, mix 1/3 cup warm water and 2 teaspoons of Borax.
-Add 2 tablespoons of the Borax solution to the bowls of glue mixture.  The more of the Borax solution you add, the thicker the slime.  Less creates oozier, stickier slime.
-Stir it all together and watch it go from snot to Gak :)

My oldest is a texture-phobe, so I used enough Borax to make pretty thick slime.  Your kids may like it dripper, but it will be messier and will stick to hands and surfaces.  The thicker variety feels slick but doesn't stick to hands or surfaces.  We varied the amounts of Borax enough to make some slime oozy and some almost like foam.  It stretches if you let it hang, rolls into a ball, bounces, and breaks into pieces if you pull it.  Fun to explore!

The paint is light-activated, so we had fun holding the containers under the lamp and then running to Tovi's room to open them under the bed.

We're planning to bring these along to Thanksgiving this year to give all the cousins something to do :)

Cheap, easy, memorable fun!  Enjoy!