Peeps tradition

It is that time of year again where you walk down the seasonal isle of a grocery store and find a colorful selection of Peeps, and it is that time of year that I get to enjoy a Geeky Mom tradition!  Blowing up Peeps in the microwave!  You know, even if you are an adult with no children, you should give this a try at least once in your life.

1. Buy Peeps, take home and unwrap them.  I add the unwrap them because apparently in America some people can  not figure that out, I have seen warning labels on packages of bread, sheessshhh!

2. Place on plate, I am not a environmentalist, so I prefer paper.  Much much easier to throw in trash than scrub off microwaved on sugar.

3. Place plate in the Microwave, depending on the microwave set to cook at full force for about 20 seconds.  this is where your kids come in great, and make sure you get them a stool to stand on first.  I like to ask my kids to think through the process of telling the microwave "what to do" or go step by step if they are really young, and let them be apart of the process.  We experiment with this, sometimes I do more than 20 seconds so I can try to get that hard "Lucky Charm" effect, but the burned effect is no good!  The children LOVE to watch what happens and love to eat their experiment even more!  All the while you give them a little science lesson.  Me, I am no expert, so I basically say " Matter, when hit with the microwaves vibrate and get hot and they bounce off each other and cause the Peep to expand"  But you brilliant minds out there can really expand, depending on the age of the child.  There are usually several Peeps and honestly we do this a few times a season, and they release Peeps several times a year (yeah I am a bit addicted to candy), after you begin to teach them what is happening, then start asking them what they think is happening and guide their answers.  The tough part about learning is that you have to teach over and over again to get ideas through, thankfully Peeps are cheap, and yummy!

You can expand on this by having toothpick fights with them (google it) and another thing you can do is use marshmallows.  Put a few drops of food color on a plate, give them a toothpick for each color and tlet them use the tip of the toothpick to paint their marshmallow.  It is really cool to see your design expand!

So have fun, explore, think, grow and love your kids!  Trust me, it means the world to them when you take the time to do dorky little fun stuff!  Fill their lives with fun and rememberable moments!