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Our fiddler crab, Mr. Crabs

You can’t get much more hands on with life science than you can get by having live animals. Some kids get to grow up with farm animals, observing the life cycle’s ebbs and flows right before their very eyes. We don’t go that “all out: around here. Though at one point in my motherhood - back when I only had ONE child - I had a vision of our house full of all sorts of pets, for my daughter’s enjoyment and education both. I imagined we’d have some pet hamsters or mice (I had mice in high school,) a bird or two, maybe an iguana or turtle,.. you know a cornucopia of life science right at our fingertips.

These days, having three children, I already feel like we live in a zoo, and my favorite sort of pet is.. shall we say.. LOW MAINTENANCE. Like my beta fish. Oh how I love his low maintenance needs. I tolerate the cats because they earn their keep. But even they annoy me when they’re underfoot meowing at me because they don’t want the food in their dish and have deluded themselves into thinking I’m going to refill it with fresh food from the bucket and spoil their pampered royal selves. As if.

And although we did set up an aquarium at the beginning of the year with some Christmas money…our little fish aren’t really that “sciency.” About the most educational they have been is learning what kind of fish they are and learning how to cope with their passing on to the big toilet bowl in the sky. Now, fiddler crabs on the other hand… hello science!

We returned from vacation a few weeks ago to find that my son’s aquarium snail had died while we were away, so we went the next day to pick out a new one and came home with a fiddler crab instead. Little did we know (having bought him at Wal-Mart and not having been educated by the live fish attendant who knew next to nothing about fish) that he was not a good tank mate for our other fish.

In fact he tried to eat them.

So he moved out and we started reading up on fiddler crabs.

There is surprisingly little known about fiddler crabs and their care but over the last few weeks, we’ve learned that most importantly, fiddler crabs need slightly brackish water. That is, slightly salty. They can survive in fresh water, but they won’t live as long a life. We read about their food needs and habitat preferences, social characteristics and also, about molting.

Mr. Crabs and his ghostly husk.

Fiddler crabs molt. And somehow they also regenerate lost limbs in the process. Which is really cool, by the way. And even cooler when you see it in person. This morning we woke to find Mr. Crabs had a ghostly friend floating in his water. Overnight he had molted his old shell off (I have no idea if I’m using that as a verb correctly) and also, grown a new back left leg and front left claw! And by the way, did you know they EAT the old shell? It’s a way of re-absorbing the calcium they lost with the loss of the old shell.

Crabs regenerate lost limbs. Now THERE'S science for you.

Okay, y’all.. there was nothing more than STUBS there last time I looked!!

So how did go from that to limbs practically overnight?

And about that front claw.. males have one small eating claw and one large display claw. If they lose a display claw, the eating claw will begin to grow larger as they begin to regenerate a new small eating claw. (I guess the ability to attract females ranks higher than the necessity of eating.) So Mr. Crabs’ formerly small eating claw is now slightly larger and will continue to grow and after a 2nd or 3rd molt (about every 2 months) will reach it’s full size.

With the loss of the hard outer shell, his new shell will be vulnerable for a few days until it hardens.

I still refuse to pick him up or touch him, but I have to confess that the fiddler crab turned out to be quite the educational and fun impulse buy! I’m even tempted to pick up a few more as everything I’ve read indicates they are social creatures and I never did intend for him to be alone in the first place. We’ve managed to keep this one alive for several weeks and his ability to molt indicates he’s in good health so I think it’s safe to say we can probably handle a couple more. Don’t you think?

I do need to get a bigger tank first tho.  Mr. Crabs is just living in a temporary “hotel” of sorts, complete with backyard “swimming pool,” “rock climbing wall,” “room service” and a “room with a view.”

Oh the hard life of a fiddler crab.

To learn more about fiddler crabs:

• Exotic Pets: How to Care for Fiddler Crabs
• Keeping Fiddler Crabs as Pets
• How to Care for Your Fiddler Crabs

Also, here’s a youtube vidoe of a fiddler crab molting. Really cool - but you may want to turn off the music.

• Fiddler Crab Molting

**This post has been happily submitted to “Your Life, Your Blog.” Check it out! **

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If you like yogurt, but you don’t like the price – have you ever considered making your own?

Stephanie at a Year’s Worth of CrockPotting has a recipe for making homemade yogurt in your crockpot – and it’s really easy!

REALLY. EASY.

As she said, it came out a little on the thin side – but the Dannon fat free plain yogurt I buy is also a little thin, and I don’t mind it. Next time I think I’ll let it sit a little longer than 8 hours and see if it makes a difference. It may or may not.

For me, the cost of a half gallon of milk was a little under 3 dollars, and I spend about $3.50 for a large tub of Dannon yogurt. Considering you make at least twice that amount, that’s a pretty good savings. I guess I should’ve done the exact math before posting this, huh?

The yogurt turned out well, and to flavor it, I just added some vanilla and sugar substitute – that way I can add fruit on an individual basis if I want, or leave it vanilla flavored.

End result?

The yogurt works and tastes good. We like that.

We save money. Big Daddy likes that.

Note: Since the writing of this post, I have made our own yogurt several more times, each successfully. For storebought, I have switched to Yoplait Fat Free Plain Yogurt, because it has more protein per serving than Dannon Plain Nonfat.

Photo Credit:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/notahipster/ / CC BY 2.0

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• klee-nis in-tuh-rhupt-is

-Noun.

1. A condition affecting women of childbearing age in which the act of cleaning is often interrupted or undone.

Women suffering from Cleanus Interruptus will find themselves frequently stopping in the middle of an act of cleaning, or actually redoing something that has already been cleaned. This condition can be very frustrating and lead to other conditions such as Overwhelmius Maximus and Shortus Temperus.

Women with children who stay home throughout the day may suffer more severe symptoms, however, Cleanus Interruptus can affect any woman with children of any age.

Other conditions such as Husbandus Absentus (whether this condition is caused by excessive work ethic, poor cleanliness habits, or inability or refusal to provide assistance) may actually worsen the symptoms of Cleanus Interruptus. Single and widowed mothers (as well as those with husbands who are deployed in the military or work in a different state) may also experience this condition more frequently or to a higher extent.

Treatment of Cleanus Interruptus is as follows:

• Topical treatments may not be effective, it is essential to get to the root of the problem and establish good cleanliness habits in each member of the family.
• For severe Cleanus Interruptus, a radical overhaul and attitude check may be necessary to regain authority and control of the house.
• Once treatment has been administered it will be necessary to keep an eye on the condition to prevent reoccurrence.
• During the course of treatment, frequent doses of chocolate and caffeine may be also necessary.
• Also, on occasion, treatment may require a holiday at a grandparents for the children until symptoms subside at home.

If you or anyone you know suffers from Cleanus Interruptus, it is imperative that you seek treatment immediately. Cleanus Interruptus will only worsen over time without treatment.

Photo Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/pinksherbet/ / CC BY 2.0

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How does your writing style affect your blog’s success? Think about your favorite blogs – what do you love about them? Think about your posts that get the most comments – what do they have in common? What was the intent behind the content? Some of the factors that make a well-written post include: Personality, Balance, Interesting Content, and Visual Flow.

I’ll be the first to admit that there’s room for improvement in my writing style. It’s much too much like my speaking style. As in: too much, too fast, too scatterbrained.

My thoughts on what make for good writing come mainly from observing the success of my favorite blogs, noting the successes of certain posts in the past and considering the thoughts of others more wise than I who have already written on this subject.

Personality

All my favorite blogs have a distinctive personality, one which I find attractive and pleasing. Without “talking” over my head, these writers use their words in an interesting way to tell their tale. Through their writing style I develop a sense of that person in my head and I am able to connect with them via their personality.

In his post, Tips for Better Blog Writing, Abraham Piper lists “Be Yourself” as his first piece of advice. In a way this is greatly freeing. This frees you up be slightly goofy or scatterbrained if that’s a part of your personality. It frees you to use your favorite catch phrases and even on occasion, the intentional bad grammar for effect.

Don’t sacrifice your personality for bland, “perfect behavior” writing, for personality is what will draw your readers in to read the rest of what you write.

Balance

To be brief or not to be brief.. that is the question. Many argue for brevity, saying that readers mainly scan online articles. Others argue that this just isn’t so – readers choose when to read and when to scan. Still others argue that brevity alone doesn’t determine whether or not someone will read your post. It takes a good balance of length and interest to hold a reader’s attention.

Skellie at Skelliewag writes, “Don’t Settle for Scannable: Write Gripping Content” in which she argues against brevity for brevity’s sake. Including suggestions such as using images, paragraph breaks and subheadings to break up the content into “bite-sized” pieces, Skellie walks writers through a process to “create content of substantial depth while gripping your readers from beginning to end.”

Without abandoning ship on personality, learn the art of getting to the point for the reader’s sake, not the word counter’s sake. One thing I learned from ” 5 Killer Ways to Improve Your Writing Right Now,” (by Darren Rowse at Problogger) is to vary sentence and paragraph lengths for effect and ease of reading.

That means I may have a paragraph with only once sentence.

Or even just one word.

It’s okay.

Seriously.

Interesting Content

One thing most everyone can agree on is “content is key.” Get to the point, make it good, make it interesting. Whether your post is long or short, whether it’s about the bible, the stock market, or the kids, once you get people to start reading your post, you’ve got to keep it interesting to keep them reading.

On the one hand, we don’t want to write for the sake of garnering readership or attention, else we fall into a vain trap. On the other hand, we must be honest and admit that we’re writing so that people will read. If our goal is the enlightenment, edification, or service of others then we must write in a way to achieve that goal.

In his post, “12 Ways to Improve Your Blog by Serving Your Readers: What I Didn’t Say at Band of Bloggers,” Abraham lists a few ways we can be considerate of our readers while we write. Among other things he mentions using informative titles, having a positive flavor and being open-minded. About writing, Abraham says:

Every post should offer value to our readers, this is what it means to serve people with a blog. To be valuable, content will generally be the result of processing thoughts, not the processing itself.

In “The Beautiful Post,” Skellie writes about drawing your readers in with your words, or at least using the “tell them what you’re going to tell them” approach.

The way I see it, you’re much more likely to walk down a strange road if you know there’s something fantastic at its end: a bucket of money, a table full of food, or whatever suits your fancy.

An unmarked road might have something amazing at its end, but if you never know, you probably won’t walk down it. There are a lot of other roads out there, with more certain benefits achieved by following them, after all.

Visual Flow

The ease with which a reader can follow through your post will have a big impact on whether or not they read the whole thing. What can you do to create a good flow from beginning to end?

1. Include pictures for visual interest.
2. Use subheadings when appropriate.
3. Break up the paragraphs.
4. Highlight key words with bold or italic lettering.
5. Make use of lists whenever possible.

In addition to the four above mentioned characteristics of good blog-writing, as a Christian writer, I also strive to hold to the same rules that govern Christians within face-to-face personal interaction. Those include:

• Honor God
• Be a good witness
• Love others
• Let no unwholesome talk come out of your mouth
• Do unto others as you would have them do unto you

It’s not unlike my “13 Things I Try To Do While Blogging.” After all, if the love of Christ is what motivates my actions throughout the day, it should permeate my writing as well.

As Abraham Piper put it: “We’ve been given a great platform for the gospel in blogging, how could we not take it seriously?”

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Last week I went through all the kids’ clothes and cycled all the seasonal stuff. It’s not really my favorite thing to do, but I do have a few tricks that make it a little bit easier. So here they are, 6 tips and tricks to bring a little bit of good organization home to your family.

1.) Sterilite tubs are relatively inexpensive - I have three. One for hand-me-downs from Princess to Drama Queen that don’t fit yet, one for the girls off-season clothes that might still fit at the next season change, and one for all of Little Prince’s hand-me-downs and off-season clothes. These tubs are stored in the corner of Little Prince’s closet for easy access. Whenever one of them is given something that doesn’t fit yet, or whenever Princess outgrows something I can just add it to the tub. When it’s time to cycle the wardrobe I pull out all the tubs, empty the dressers of their contents, sort everything appropriately and put it all back. I’ll leave the tubs out for a day or two to catch other items that might have been in the dirty laundry and then store them away again. I do the same thing with shoes, and those that can be passed on get stored with the appropriate clothes.

2.) Use space wisely. The two girls share a dresser which is located inside their closet, as is Little Prince’s dresser inside his closet as well. They both have long curtain rods in their little walk-in closets and I’ve also added a lower wire shelf/rod in the girls’ closet. Having the dresser and curtain rods in close proximity helps with putting clothes away, as well as making it easier for the girls to get their own clothes and making more space in their tiny rooms.

3.) Organize and contain those teeny tiny socks. First off, all three of my kids have different socks. When I first started this, Princess received white quarter socks with purple toes, Drama Queen received white ankle socks with pink toes, and when Little Prince came along he got little boy quarter socks. Since I’m very picky about not folding socks together by folding the tops over (it stretches the elastic and it’s a pet peeve of mine), each girl has a basket in the designated “sock and underwear drawer” to contain their socks. Little Prince has little drawers along the top of his dresser so his socks go into one of those. This system makes it very easy for the girls to put socks away and find their own matching socks. And if one gets lost or ruined, it’s not that big of a problem, because the remaining mate still matches all the others.

4.) I pull out my magic marker. When the girls started dance class and it became important to keep up with their stockings and keep track of which was whose,.. I finally decided to throw years of frustration out the window and make it easier for everybody. I pulled out my magic marker and wrote their initials in the waistband in the back. Now when the girls get new tights (for church or ballet) I pull them out of the package and initial them immediately. No more wondering. However, I haven’t figured out what to do for black or navy tights yet - I’m not ready to pull out a needle and white thread, though that certainly is an option.

5.) Hang as much as possible. Since the girls share a dresser this is especially important. They each have one of the four drawers for their clothes. The other two are used for pajamas and socks/undergarments. Hanging things not only makes more room in the drawers for what can’t hang, but it also means there is less stuff in the dresser to become unfolded and it makes it easier to see what they have and pick an outfit. I often send the girls in there themselves to get dressed. When their drawers are stuffed full and they have to dig to find the pieces that much, the odds are much lower that they’ll actually come out without something that looks even remotely decent.

6.) We have a shoe bin. Under the lower shelf are two stackable bins for the girls shoes. In a perfect world, the shoes would be organized in some fashion. But in reality they’re really just chunked into the bins. However, this is still a level of organization acceptable to me. Provided the girls put their shoes away in the bins (see, that’s really the key right there) then they will be easy to find later, thus making my life a little bit easier as well.

Photo Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mysza/ / CC BY 2.0

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Earlier this week, my son, my cute, sweet, innocent little son, through no devious mischief but merely through curiosity and normal play, twice tried to become a teeny little arsonist – all in the same day.

It began that morning, when he was playing with Princess’ play guitar (which broke a string just the day before, but I didn’t even realize he had it) in the girls’ room and watching Blues Clues. I wasn’t paying much attention until he told me the tv wasn’t working in there. And neither were the lights. Or the clock for that matter. Say what?

After checking the box in my closet I confirmed that the switch for their room had been tripped, but turning it back to “ON” did not make the lights come back on as I expected it should. Say what??

After telling Big Daddy that I thought the fuse must need to be replaced because it wasn’t coming back on, he checked it and said that it sparked when he turned it back on – meaning something was wrong in their room. Like what? The only things plugged in are the lights, the tv, and the clock.

So back to their room I go. Checking the outlet for the tv I find the plug had shifted a little and the top wasn’t flush with the outlet cover – Leaving just enough room for the stray METAL guitar string to lay neatly across both prongs of the plug between it and the wall!! SAY WHAT?!?

1. My first thought was thank goodness it didn’t spark and catch the curtains or nearby sleeping bag on fire!
2. Simultaneously, my second thought was to yank the string off immediately – good thing the breaker was off!! Which led me to my next thought:
3. Thank goodness Little Prince wasn’t TOUCHING the guitar string when it contacted the outlet!

It took a few seconds for my heart to stop fluttering.

And if that wasn’t enough – later in the day Little Prince thought he’d test out our “new” (hand-me-down from MamaNut) microwave. … By cooking a floppy disk! Be still, my rapid pulse.

I was cooking at the stove when I heard the distinct *clink* of the microwave door followed by the recognizable *beep* of one of the preset cooking buttons. As I turned, the innocent microwave began cooking the Wal-Mart picture disk from Princess’ 3rd birthday.

Which of course began to spark.

A lot.

Even though it only took me two steps over there and about two seconds to hit the stop button.

It’s a good thing I was standing right there. I don’t know exactly what would happen if you let a floppy disk continue to cook in the microwave and I don’t intend to find out. But I imagine it wouldn’t be good. Or pretty. I’m not sure if the microwave would survive. And all my brain can conjure is an image of a white little microwave spewing flames.

So how much trouble is he going to get into when he is TRYING?

* Make no mistake I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE my little boy dearly and I’m mostly thankful he was not harmed in any way. God kept him safe, I know it without a doubt.

* Just in case you’re worrying, I do, in fact, have a fire extinguisher tucked in an out of the way but very easy to get to location in the kitchen.

*Just in case, I’m keeping all matches taped to the ceiling!

* I jest. … For now.

My 4 year old son has been obsessed with states of matter lately (thank you “Sid the Science Kid” and “Zula Patrol.”) He’s constantly pointing out “this is a solid,” and “that is a liquid.” And of course, since he’s four, he’s going to eventually follow up with some kind of “why” question.

Like: “Momma, why do the eggs turn from a liquid to a solid when you cook them?”

Uhhhhh….

…

So it was bound to happen that while we were eating Jello my Little Prince would turn and ask, “Momma, is Jello a liquid or a solid?”

Now THAT, I did remember from science class! The answer is “Neither.” But I couldn’t remember what it was called so I turned to Google because I *heart* Google. (Hey - remember back when we used to look these things up in encyclopedias? (Insert hysterical laughter here.)

I found the answer in several places across the internet but this one had the best explanation that my kids would understand:

Gelatin itself is made of a protein. (Proteins are solids at most temperatures.) When you mix the jello powder into the hot water, the protein actually dissolves in the water. But like many things, it’s harder for the protein to stay dissolved in cold water than in hot water. So as the solution cools down, the protein comes out of solution and turns back into a solid. But it doesn’t just form a solid that settles onto the bottom, like a mixture of water and sand would.

As the protein molecules come out of solution, they stick to each other. When they stick to each other, they form a complicated matrix that runs all through the jello. You can think of it as a giant mixed-up jungle gym of little protein molecules all sticking together. They water molecules get caught up inside this matrix so they can’t just drain out.

So all things said and done, jello is basically a solid suspended in a liquid. The scientific word for this is a ’colloid’. If you heat it up enough, the solid will become dissolved again it will become a liquid all through. But if you cool it down enough, the liquid water will freeze and it will become a solid all through.

So jello is neither a liquid, nor a solid, it is a colloid. You learn something new everyday. Even while eating your dessert. ; )

And just for grins and giggles - you can make your own Jello-style gelatin dessert at home using real fruit juice and gelatin (which we now know is a protein - that adds nutritional value RIGHT?) and without all the artificial flavors and colors. Imagine turning it into a whole science lesson! Make a bowl of jello, chill and set. Put a small serving in the freezer, put a small serving in a sauce pan. The best part? Eating the rest of the jello while you wait for your jello experiments to freeze and melt!

Oh - and for those of you wondering about the eggs? Protein plays an important part in that answer, too. (Read Scene 6 or watch the 2nd video segment.)

Science and food. Food and science. I like this relationship. =)

Photo Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/stevendepolo/ / CC BY 2.0