Homemade Squishiness

One of our more popular endeavors last week was the creation of "gak." I got the recipe from Pinterest. It was so easy - a couple of bottles of Elmer's glue, a little water, a little Borax, and some food coloring - and provided lots of squishy fun.

The texture is smooth and cold. It's shiny but not slimy, though if you leave it lying around, it tends to expand and grow, like something out of a bad 1950's horror film. But it's easy to pick up in one big lump - like a huge pile of Silly Putty.

Liam's favorite thing to do with it is to plant both feet firmly in the middle of the goo, then look at his footprints. The prints don't stick around very long, as the gak reforms fairly quickly. We also had fun with gak racing. We each hold up a string of the goop and see which thread hit the table first.

Store it in a plastic bag and it should keep forever. Future generations will marvel at the stuff.

Liam's Magic Beans

Magic in the sense that they were just regular beans from a regular seed-packet that are now growing into something edible, thanks to a little tender loving care from a GrandBoy and GrandMary.

First, we soaked some of the beans in a cup of water. Some of the beans, we scattered on a wet paper towel, then covered with another wet paper towel. We waited a few hours until the beans got wrinkly. Some of them split open. A couple even started to sprout.

Then we planted the beans in clear cups of potting soil. The clear cups let us watch the roots sprout and take hold.

There was no small amount of drama when we didn't see spouts after the first couple of days. With the fresh soil, heat, humidity, and rainfall, we were expecting to see something pop up overnight. Had we planted too many beans in one cup? I lost count of how many Liam pushed down into the dirt.

But hooray! On the fourth day the first bit of green poked through the soil. And we could see the thin white lengths of roots taking hold in each of the cups. I will admit to some over-enthusiastic watering sessions, but give a 2-year-old a watering can, and, well, you do lose control over proper hydration.

By day six, the plants were going great guns. They seemed to grow a 1/2-inch every hour. Yeah!

It was easy to see the plants were outgrowing their small, clear cups, and it was time to transplant the tender shoots to larger pots. So we emptied our little cups into terracotta planters, where their roots could spread and the beans could grow properly. We also planted the bean seeds that hadn't sprouted. Hey, you never know.

So now we wait. Wait for the flower and the fruit. We'll keep you posted on the progress. Liam takes great pride in his beans. Looks like he has his father's green thumb.

Magic doesn't have to mean supernatural. Most often, I find, magic is in the common and ordinary. Like a few dry beans that turn into green plants and more magic beans. What a wonder!