Why haven't I written anything?

In case anyone is paying attention, we have had no internet so I couldn't post on the weekend! However, I'm working on the daytime moon post...hopefully tomorrow, if my 5-month-old behaves himself and naps for a couple of hours. Don't hold your breath.

And I know, I could have written the post with no internet, using books and stuff. But I didn't. So there.

Why do we have candles on birthday cakes?

Wanna know what this blog is all about? Click here to read the initial post and learn why we are learning.

It's a bit sad when the number of candles on your birthday cake represents decades instead of years. With all those years behind you, have you ever wondered - why the candles? Then today is your lucky day.

Artemis

It turns out there are a few potential reasons why we light candles on birthday cakes, but the tradition seems to stem back to Ancient Greece. The Greeks would offer up round cakes to the moon goddess Artemis, adorned with lit candles to make them appear more moon-like. What this has to do with birthdays, I'm not sure; maybe it just sparked a whole cake-candle trend.

In old world Germany, people used to place a candle on their cakes to symbolize 'the light of life'. This is closer to the modern birthday way, celebrating time passed, with happy wishes for the future.

The tradition of having a party on your birthday stems back to a time when people thought they were vulnerable to attacks from evil spirits on the anniversary of their birth, so they would gather together in large numbers, so the ghoulies were less likely to approach. Perhaps that's why the cakes were made - to feed the hungry spirit-warders.

Some cultures believe the smoke from the candles will either ward off evil spirits or carry their wishes up to the gods. Some believe your wish will come true only if you blow them all out in one puff, while others will claim the number of candles left burning correlates to the number of boy/girlfriends the birthday person is in relations with at the time. Or was that just my family?

Candles feature pretty highly in the world of traditions - think the lighting of the menorah for the Jewish holiday of Hannukah, or the lighting of votive candles in the Catholic church - but whatever the religious reason, I reckon this can be put down to one basic fact: people love fire. Don't tell you toddler that though, you might give him ideas.

Mooning around

This week's Why is a real-life one, as in it came from the mouth of an actual child. On a field trip with my toddler's Playcentre, some kids were looking up at the moon, which was as clear as a French-manicured fingernail against the blue sky. Why can you sometimes see the moon during the day? asked one small, inquisitive being. Like the moon appearing from behind the clouds on a dark night, all will be revealed next week.

Why does our hair turn grey?

This may be a short post. Kid-induced sleep deprivation is making my eyes too blurry to type and my brain too mushy to think, but, it turns out, probably not turning my hair grey.

The most interesting thing I found out in this week's research (which, I have to admit, has not been quite as thorough as last week's, due to babies and their midnight parties) is that grey hair is actually just a combination of white hair (or transparent hair, to be precise) and dark hair. 

So George Clooney's 'salt and pepper' look, as well as having a certain ring to it, is quite aptly named.

Polars bears actually have transparent hairs that reflect the light and appear 

white. Their skin underneath is black to absorb the sun and keep them warm.

What has caused the Cloonster - and Grandma - to go grey? Hair is attached to our heads by roots, which are encased in little tubes of skin called follicles. These follicles are fed colour information from cells called melanin that exist just below the skin's surface. As we get older, the amount of melanin we make slows down, causing some of our hairs to grow without colour. Whether it looks white or grey depends on how many colourless hairs we have and the way the light reflects on them. Very old people often have completely white hair, because there are no coloured hairs left to cause the grey look.

The particular shade of hair you are born with is governed by genetics. The same goes for going grey. If your grandfather went grey at 30, you probably will too, but there are also other reasons why your hair might go grey faster or slower than your brother's, including the climate and level of toxins in your  environment. Stress doesn't seem to have much impact, according to scientists, but I'm sure there are parents, teachers, and perhaps CEOs out there who can look back on photos of more relaxed days and disagree.

I hope that explains it to the adults. For those needing a toddler version, here goes (haaaa):

Hair grows out of our heads from roots, which have colour in them. As people get old, they run out of colour. 

Happy birthday to you

This week we went to a four-year-old's birthday party. Batman was there, but that's another story. My little boy loves birthday parties, mostly because he loves cake. He loves the taste of it, obviously, but he also loves the process of bringing out the birthday cake, the song, the candles, the cutting. So far, he is more interested in the cake than he is in presents.

It is a pretty awesome tradition, especially in a western culture that doesn't have many traditions left.

My Why for this week: why do we blow out candles on the birthday cake? And, although I'm sure a toddler would never ask this, but because I'm curious, is the birthday cake tradition universal?

My big boy on his first birthday

Why do storms produce thunder and lightning?

Stop throwing those blocks at your brother, toddler, here's my explanation of how thunder and lightning works. 

I know you've been waiting all week for the answer to this one, cos you're busy types, too busy to just google it yourself, right? Plus I totally read books (I did, we went to the library). Keep in mind, this is written to be explained to a toddler, so I've gone for simple, but not too simple. I find most toddlers are smarter than you think they are and it's best not to condescend them.

So, the first thing is the weather needs to be quite warm to make a thunder storm, so they mostly happen in spring or summer, but can occur all year round.

The warm, damp air on the ground rises and mixes together with the cooler air up high in the sky and creates a cloud. This lift can happen because of something physical, like a mountain in the way of the air, or because of a front, which is the place where two different air masses meet. A mass of hot air might meet up with a mass of cold air and this would cause the hot air to lift up over the cold air.

So, as the cloud gets bigger and grows even higher up into the sky, some of the drops of water inside it get really cold and turn into ice. The bits of water and the bits of ice crash into each other and make positive and negative electrical energy. When the cloud gets filled up, the electricity starts to escape in the form of lightning.

Think of how the magnets on a train set connect the engines with the cargo. If you hold them a little way away from each other, they jump forward and connect together. Well, the electricity in the cloud is the same. It tries to find somewhere to connect to, somewhere that has electricity in it too.

Sheet lightning, when the whole sky is lit up, happens when the electricity jumps from thunder cloud to thunder cloud. Forked lightning, the zig-zag kind, happens when the lightning hits something on Earth. Often this will be something metal, cos metal things can hold on to electricity.

Lightning is so hot and fast, it moves the air around it, creating a loud bang, which is thunder. We don't hear thunder at the same time as lightning because light travels a lot faster through the air than sound does. If the thunder sounds like a loud clap or bang, it must be close to you. If it's more like a rumble, it must be further away.

And there you have it, thunder and lightning.

A new generation of Nanas

This week, I picked out my favourite picture book, Peepo by Janet and Allan Ahlberg, to read to my 2 year old. I have to admit he's not as into it as I am, but sometimes I like to drag him behind me as I wander down Childhood Lane.

Kids' books have this hilarious way of representing stereotypes, or at least the classics from my generation do. How funny is the burglar in Mog the Forgetful Cat, with his little black eye mask and his striped shirt? Here's an image of him after he's been caught, eye mask hanging shamefully from his fingers while he enjoys a cup of tea with his victims. It took me years to realise burglars don't necessarily wear stripes and people who have been burgled are not usually so generous.

Anyway, Peepo got me thinking about grandmas. To my generation, a grandma looks like the one in Peepo. She's there in the background of this image, hanging out the washing. She's wearing a floral dress and an apron, with her white hair done in a tight perm. That is how I would draw a grandma if I was playing a game of Pictionary, even though mine don't look anything like that. I wonder if my children would recognise that image as a nana, since both of their grandmothers wear modern outfits, not overly different from mine if I'm honest, and have their hair dyed.

Which brings me to this week's Why...

Why does our hair lose its colour as we get older? Does blonde hair turn white and dark hair turn grey? Does stress really make it happen faster?

Tune in next week.