A Tale of Two Delaneys

Last year, then first grader, Delaney, started drawing me science experiments. I don’t know where she gleaned her knowledge of beakers, distillation, and basic cause and effect, but I freakin’ LOVE it! All the artwork depicts a vat in which you add the specific amounts of colors she’s indicated, the tubes which transfer the liquid to another area to be heated, and finally a drop or two of the mix drips on a fruit or vegetable. There is a usually a disembodied scientist who watches the experiment and generally has a pretty surprised expression at the effects of the potion on the fruit/vegetable.

Here are some examples:

This experiment resulted in a pirate strawberry.

If you put this potion on a strawberry, it makes the berry take a bath.

Apparently, this experiment was so important it was repeated to verify and validate the results!

This experiment turns a banana into George Washington… Dolla Dolla bill, ya’ll!

She totally has a method to the experiements as well. Different foods have different levels of difficulty. Strawberries are a level 1 experiment, carrots are level 2, bananas are level 3, and starting this year, there are broccoli experiments (which I’m guessing is level 4). She’s made so many that I’m a bit surprised that I don’t have more pictures.

Right, so the broccoli experiments. The now second grade Delaney started this school year with broccolis. She gave me a couple where the experiment resulted in the broccoli acting out Disney movies.  Here’s The Little Mermaid:

Spoiler alert: This is EXACTLY how this movie ends.

Then she gave me this Beauty and the Beast experiment, which is really what this post is about.

I love that now that she’s older, the experiments come with captions!

I have another friend who is also named Delaney, but she is an adult. Adult Delaney and I discovered that we both enjoy spontaneously changing the lyrics to popular (I use that term loosely) songs to fit our given situation. Example: I was doling out leftovers for lunch and realized that there were more refried beans left than I cared to eat. I immediately sang (to the tune of More than a woman), “More than I wanted…. More beans than I wanted to eat!”

Now here is where the two Delaney worlds intersect. When I was given the Beauty and the Beast experiment, I, of course, sang my own version of the song. And here it is:

“Tale as old as time…
They look like little trees….
They’re crunchy and they’re green,
Cooking them with steam.
Broccoli and the beast!”

The best part is that a bunch of kids at work started singing my version too! Several even pretended to ballroom dance together while singing it. In fact, we sang it all week.

And yes, yes I did write this entire post just to share that ridiculous broccoli and the beast song.