This is the first list item that I have actually done with a tiny human being, and I’ve gotta say, I think I struck gold on methodology.

I had a two-year-old visitor at my house last night (along with her mom). She was extremely curious about my little dogs and tried to pet them without making them growl (they’re grumpy old men, not her fault). I gifted her a dinosaur balloon that was left over from my dino-themed birthday party that she carried around the house with her like a best friend. And I watched her eat broccoli “trees” just like I used to — biting off the “leaves” and putting the “trunk” back on her plate. I could tell that she found the newness of my house to be exciting and different and probably a bit confusing, but I couldn’t wait to blow her little mind even more with some of the fun things I had planned to do with her.

When I was a little kid, the kitchen was such an exciting place to be. Growing up, my mom was a food scientist, the kind that invented new foods and worked for cool companies like Gatorade and Quaker Oats. (I later got a degree in Food Science because I wanted to be her!) She was a great cook, and made homemade meals for us, but surprisingly she never really taught me how to cook! (I think this is one of her biggest regrets, but I eventually figured it out.)

However, she did let me help her bake. And let’s be honest — baking is kitchen science. We kept the baking ingredients in plastic containers with mustard yellow lids that had deep grooves on the top. Each one had a little scoop inside, and she would show me how to level off a cup of flour or how to pack brown sugar in the measuring cup. My favorite thing to make was “peanut butter blossom cookies” — traditional peanut butter cookies with a Hershey’s kiss pressed into the top while the cookie was still warm. I was so proud of the cookies that I shared the recipe with my Girl Scout troop, even though I’m sure that the recipe was one of the ones that comes on the side of a bag of kisses.

Throughout my younger years, I would throw things together in the kitchen, bake them, spit them out, and try again. Experimenting came naturally, even when what I made was a disaster. I also had an entire birthday party where my mom hired someone to perform edible science experiments with me and a group of my friends, my favorite activity being making sour gummy worms from scratch. The kitchen was my first laboratory.

Mad Scientist Ellen! Always the science nerd.

As a young adult, I babysat for a family for years. The little girl and I would watch “Nailed It” together and then venture into her kitchen and try to throw together something that was in the ballpark of being tasty. This was a true test for me because her family did not stock the kitchen with the normal baking essentials. Instead we made confections out of oat milk and flax seeds and coconut flour and 100% dark chocolate. Many did not turn out well, but I was impressed with her parents for still eating all of the things that we made with a smile on their faces. All of our experiments had quite an effect on her as she is now thinking of a career as a pastry chef (she’s still in high school, but I just think that it’s so cool).

Then, as “real” adult, I continued to bake and develop my skills, but had a love-hate relationship with it. I refused to bake without the key ingredients of sugar, butter, and eggs (it just wasn’t the same), but this left me unable to fully enjoy my creations because of my fear of gaining weight and strongly programmed fatphobia. I figured out a loophole though — I could bake for coworkers and not have to eat 2 dozen cookies by myself. I built up quite a reputation at a couple companies with my banana bread recipe as well as my diverse cookie offerings. I even made a coconut watermelon sorbet sans recipe that was the talk of the office for months.

Some of my all-time favorites: chocolate chip banana bread

a medley of citrusy pie fillings and jams

I still bake, although not as much as I used to since I don’t go into an office where I can share my creations, and it’s been a while since I’ve tried something without a recipe. If I’m being honest, it’s been a while since I’ve had fun in the kitchen at all.

But then in walked Olive, and things changed. Oh boy, did I have fun again.

Once I found out that Olive was coming over, I scoured the internet for kitchen experiments to do with a 2-year-old. Most recommended starting at age 3, but I knew that she could handle them. I landed on a page from the KiwiCo website with a long list of Kitchen Science Experiments. (If you haven’t heard of KiwiCo, I’m not going to do an official ad, but I do send a subscription box to my favorite pseudo-nephew every other month and they have been quite spectacular so far. I so desperately want to be that cool, science nerd aunt 🤓.)

During dinner, I was antsy to get started. I had assembled all of the ingredients that we would need (they had been on-hand in my pantry), and I remembered what it felt like to be excited about baking / creating / experimenting again. Curious, anxious, excited, hopeful. The inner kid in me gobbled down my food to make the evening move along faster. Olive’s mom told her that we were going to make “potions” together, and felt my inner witch beam with joy. Witches were OG scientists.

Once we all finished eating dinner (for Olive this meant biting a lot of food but not actually swallowing it, the little stinker 😂), I grabbed a baking sheet and placed it in front of Olive. I figured we would start with a simple experiment to get the ball rolling. I filled a bowl with whole milk and grabbed the food coloring. I put a little bit of dish soap in another bowl and gathered together a handful of q-tips. Olive’s eyes followed me as I moved things into place.

She watched, very patiently, as I squeezed one drop of each color of dye into the middle of the bowl of milk. I dipped a q-tip in the dish soap, handed it to her, and told her to gently tap the food coloring. She seemed unconvinced. Until she lightly touched the surface of the milk and the colors exploded to the edges of the bowl. She jerked her head up and stared at me, with that “holy shit, look what I did” kind of look. My heart melted.

We’re just getting started, little one!

The little scientist exploring the hydrophobic properties of dish soap.

We emptied out the bowl of milk and refilled it with some more in order to repeat the experiment (like the good scientists we are), and the second time was even more fantastic. Olive and Big Kid Ellen were hooked and wanted more.

We moved on to oobleck, the classic non-Newtonian fluid made out of cornstarch and water. I used to make tubs of this stuff as a kid, letting my hand slowly sink all the way down to the bottom of the slime and then quickly trying to raise my hand up as the substance magically hardened. It defied logic and made my little brain want figure out its secrets.

Olive showed a similar confusion with it. She would try to pick it up or stir it with a spoon, but each time was met with a hard surface. When I showed her how to slowly let her fingers sink in, her amusement returned and she let it drip off of her fingers. She was equal parts grossed out and totally enthralled. The voice inside of me was screaming, “more, More, MORE!”

Y’all know what comes next — baking soda and vinegar. The quintessential partnership in kitchen experimentation. I hadn’t had time to construct a papier-mâché volcano and really blow little Olive’s mind, so instead we opted for a pie tin with more food coloring. I filled the bottom of the tin with baking soda, and Olive helped spread out little drops of dye around the whole thing. The fizzing noise that the vinegar made when it reacted with the baking soda brought me right back to elementary school. I saw Olive’s nose crumple as the vinegar odor hit her nose, her eyes go wide as the concoction grow rapidly in size. So many senses getting attention!

The pan quickly turned into a smelly, cola-colored mess, so we cleaned it out and moved on to the final experiment — unpoppable bubbles. I got all the ingredients mixed in the pan with Olive’s help (water, dish soap, corn syrup, a little blue food dye) and stuck a straw in it to blow some bubbles. Massive bubbles grew up from the tip of the straw, and Olive, being a normal 2-year-old, wanted to pop them immediately. Before I could talk about how they couldn’t be popped, she slapped both of her hands into the bubbles, causing all of them to not only pop, but for the entire mixture to be thrown across the table, down the front of our clothes, and all over the floor.

She looked at me and her mom with apologetic eyes, but then we all busted out laughing.

It was at that moment, when the adult fear of messes abruptly interrupted the spontaneity of exploration, that I realized I had still been approaching all of these experiments from an adult’s point of view. I wanted to show Olive what each thing did. I wanted to explain the science behind everything. I wanted to control the situation. No! This was supposed to be all about being a kid again and sometimes kids don’t need explanations. They just need time to explore and be in awe of the world around them.

In an attempt to get back on track, I blew even more bubbles and waited for her to slap the living daylights out of them again. That went on for multiple rounds of bubbles until her clothes were entirely soaked through all the way to her little diaper. Her giggles were infectious, and it was hard to tell her that it was time to clean up. She kept sticking her chubby fingers into the bubble mixture with glee.

Her little tongue sticking out and her hand gently holding my arm 😍 I can’t.

Clean-up was a bit stickier than anticipated. Yes the bubble mixture had soap in it, but it also had copious amounts of sweet corn syrup that stuck to everything. And Olive still wanted to play! The three adults all grabbed wet paper towels and began to clean up as best we could. The dye didn’t ruin anything, thankfully, but the stickiness had permeated everything. Olive stripped down so that we could get her into a clean outfit. She was still grinning.

The night ended with fresh PJs and some Netflix. Olive ended up chilling in Derek’s gamer beanbag, sharing a blanket with Chopper. When we put on a cupcake cat show (I can’t explain more, sorry), Olive’s face lit up. She had her dinosaur balloon nearby as well. All the things a kid could ever want.

Princess Olive on her comfy, cozy throne, with dinosaur friend, Sally, and court jester, Chopper, at her sides.

I pronounce potion-making / kitchen experimentation a complete success! So many of these posts have been about letting go of control and allowing spontaneity and play back into my life. Having a kid to do this activity with made it a million times better because I don’t have confidence that I would have found these activities as fun without her involvement. I’m going to try to get more kids involved moving forward, and I hope Olive makes another guest appearance. Let me know if any of your kids want to be a part of this, too!

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