Maggie's Memos: A Science Project with Charlie

So, for those of you who don't already know, Mama entered me in this Little Miss Playthings thing on AG Playthings.  It's a little embarrassing, but I'm trying to humor her.

Round 3's theme was "Science".  Mama really wanted to get this one right since we ended up missing Round 2 (Mama was a bit stressed last week getting ready for her vacation...which I did NOT go on, even though I strongly hinted that I was available.).  We were trying to figure out what on earth we could do, when Charlie reminded Mama that she had a "dig your own fossil" set, or something like that.  Mama thought it would be perfect.

So, Mama set out a blanket on the kitchen floor for us to work on...and proceeded to take a TON of annoying pictures as we went through the whole process.  Yay. 

So, here we are, ready to begin.  Can you sense my overflowing excitement?  Charlie was practically bouncing off the walls.  Sometimes she worries me.

"Excavation Kit".  Wow...sounds so official.  Seriously, what kid asks for this for Christmas?

Charlie pulled our "digging tool" (that looked like a big, glorified toothpick) and brush out before she pulled out the block of plaster.

We read through the instructions.  It sounded simple enough.  My hope was that we'd be done in 15 minutes or so.  I mean, it's for kids, so it can't be too complicated, right?

Charlie pulled the plastic off of the plaster block.  I love how it says "Dig it out!" on one side.  Classy.

Since this was for my LMPT photo shoot, Charlie decided that I should be the one to use the digging tool, even though I could tell she was itching to do it herself.  It was actually pretty fun...at first.  Chip away till you find something...

Here was our first glimpse of the fossil.

Charlie immediately sprang into action, almost panicking when I kept on using the digging tool.  "Don't harm the fossil!!" she cried.  Then, ever so carefully, she began dusting it off with the little brush.  Um...Charlie, you do realize this is a PRETEND fossil in a block of PLASTER, right?  It's not like we're making some great scientific discovery!  But you just can't reason with the girl.

The result of Charlie's painstakingly slow brushing:  a piece of rock.

We kept at it, Charlie watching me like a hawk every minute.  She wanted to make sure I didn't damage anything, I guess.

Here was our first view of the actual fossil itself.  I thought Charlie was excited before, but now she was going completely nuts!!

The careful archaeologist at work. :}

I was so glad when we finally uncovered the whole thing.  All that work for a silly little pretend dinosaur skeleton!  It was exhausting!  Mama ended up helping us towards the end so that we could get it completely removed.  I have definitely decided I do not EVER want to be an archaeologist.

Charlie, on the other hand, was just more pumped up.  She kept going on and on about how cool fossils were, because they showed how much Noah's flood affected the earth.  She said that some scientists believe that fossils took millions and millions of years to form, but then she was saying that fossils have to happen rapidly or the bones would decay and rot.  A catastrophe like the flood would have been the perfect thing to cause fossilization.  I know she's totally fascinated by this stuff, but she pretty much lost me at "decay" and "rot".  Eww.  I'm sure she'll be a world-famous Creation scientist someday.  Which is fine with me...as long as I don't have to dig up any more bones!

Here we are with the finished product (finally!!!)

The plaster was really messy.  Thankfully, that doesn't really bother Charlie or me.  Tess and some of the others would have freaked out! 

Our fossil.  Oh yeah, and that's the other thing.  What on earth are we supposed to do with this thing now?  I guess Charlie will probably display it alongside her huge Pixar toy collection.  I'm sure glad I share a shelf with Rachel.  Her stuff takes up a lot less space. :)

This is the photo Mama ended up using for LMPT.  I guess it works.  What do you guys think?  Would you give me any points?