Wow! This school year went by way too fast! Summer is basically knocking on the backdoor as we speak. (As I am typing this, feeling a little emotional about the end of the school year-my oldest graduates from kindergarten next week!) Summer can bring both excitement and anxiousness to us mom’s who aren’t too sure what to do with all the free time it brings to our kids, especially those who do not have many vacations or summer camps lined up. Don’t fret! Hopefully with a little science fun from me-and some insight into my not-so-perfect mommy world, you will be able to keep your little ones busy as well as still on board the educational train throughout this summer! Oh and hopefully will feel a little sense of normalcy in this crazy and wonderful world of mommyhood 🙂
How about a little introduction now. My name is Clair Cook, formally Mrs. Cook when I was teaching High School Science in Baton Rouge. Before entering into the teaching profession, I was a Research Associate at Pennington Biomedical upon graduating from Louisiana State University, Geaux Tigers ;)! Life began to get a little busy starting in 2009. I got married to my wonderful husband, Kyle, whom I met while attending Mississippi College. Yes, I am actually a born and raised Mississippi girl-don’t be surprised to see a few ‘yalls’ throughout my posts! Decided to switch from research to teaching. I then had my oldest, Ryleigh, 2 years later. My whole world changed once she entered into the world. Life as a mommy was so surreal…always dreamed about it, but didn’t know it’s real entirety until I saw her for the first time.
Life got a tad bit crazy from that point on. I was pregnant with my son, Brady, 7 months later. It was a shocker, but such a blessing to have had them that close. Although I loved my ‘kids’ at school, I felt a tug to be at home with my little ones. Life went on, much like a roller coaster (all you moms know how the first years are!). Once Brady was around 18 months, we knew something wasn’t right. He wasn’t interacting with others like we thought he should, and his speech wasn’t where it should have been. We had Brady evaluated and later found he was some where on the autism spectrum, with a speech delay. Can I tell you, my world had not been shaken like that before…I will never forget that phone call. From that point, it was almost like a mad dash to a finish line that was too far to even see. We called around, did our research, knowing early intervention was key. Let’s just say, now we are about 3 years later and he has almost caught up developmentally and is ‘pulled out’ of the spectrum. Praise God! Of course, he still has his quirks and has a bit more catching up to do, but we are exactly where we want to be…haven’t crossed that finish line, but it sure is in pure sight now!
My youngest, Chloe, came along 2 weeks after the devastating August 2016 flood. Now, it doesn’t matter if you flooded or didn’t flood-it effected everyone some way, some how in different degrees. This flood opened up my eyes to all the blessings around. All the volunteers that pushed through getting as many as possible safe and on the path to recovery, still tugs on my heart. I know many are still on the pathway, anxiously ready to take the completion detour! Sweet Chloe is growing too fast and steadily absorbing everything in, watching her older siblings as if she must memorize every move they make.
Ok, now that I have my life novel complete, up until this point of my life of course ;), you must be wondering why start blogging about science activities and your family?! As you can recall about 30 minutes ago when you first started reading this post, I mentioned I have a resume with science teacher and research associate on it. Let me tell you, you can take the school out of the teacher, but you can’t take the teacher out! I seriously ooze (yea I know, weird word to use right here) science!
I am that girl that sees a cool beetle on the ground and stops traffic to see if I know what kind…not that good at identifying bugs, but can try, right?! My compassion for science has had me incorporating it with weekly/weekend activities with my kids. It is so much fun to see them get so excited about something I love as well as something educational! My hope is to be able to share this excitement and compassion for science with you and your family as you follow along. There are so many places in our community you can go to get your science on as well! I will be posting on different activities that have been fun (and successful!) for my family as well as ways to get out of the house for some family fun.
Be aware that I will have some random mommy posts along the way…I mean, life as a mom is almost like trial and error, right?! (See, there’s some more science for y’all!)
