Chasing Bubbles

 S. comes up with all the best ideas. Today he was in the laundry with me and saw our bubble wands and asked, "Can we have bubbles?!" I have been very busy lately, packing for our move out of town, and the kids have been a little stressed as a result. Not only do they have so many changes at the moment but they also have a mother who is trying to split her attention a few too many ways, so it really helps when I take their lead and just go with it.

Bubbles are cool for so many reasons.
For starters.. "Wheee!!! Bubbles!!"
And, well, they are like tiny glass rainbows!...
and they make wind visible!...
and they are interactive!...
Just as importantly though, bubbles are a chance for my kids to have my attention. I am outside with them facilitating and can't be lured into folding laundry, or fixing a snack, or checking my email in the middle of what we are doing. Apart from that, they give kids a chance to chase and catch which is something that is innately human. They are like cat toys like that (in fact A.'s cat Felix started chasing the bubbles while the boys were doing the same). They are an activity that I can do while I am carrying the baby on my back, and yet I don't have to run around myself. If we have been inside and doing sitting down things for too long, running around chasing bubbles is a great invigorator. I also find that my children's enthusiasm tends to peter out just as the liquid starts to, but that may just be my luck.

Thank goodness bubbles are generally pretty cheap. Buying a bottle of liquid might set you back $7 at a toy store (in New Zealand at least) but making your own is normally pretty easy and inexpensive. If you are making your own you can always let the kids do the mixing too. It never hurts to think of the process rather than the product, though. Everything involving making and mixing processes is an adventure for us. We discuss a lot about guessing the results, and experimenting to find out which things work, and which don't. I find that it helps to warn my oldest child that things might not work well before we try something new, otherwise he can get very disappointed and grief-stricken.

 I seem to have one son who is a concrete thinker and one who is a lot more creative and abstract.

A: "I know ALL about bubbles. They're made with air and they pop when they touch a hand or the ground."

S: "I think they might fly up to SPACE!!"