More Than One Way to Look At It

Instructions can be confusing sometimes, but it never occurred to me how befuddling kids might find them...

Pipsqueak got a Smithsonian crystal growing kit as a gift, and being all about "shiny" and "sparkly", this was pretty exciting for her. She said, "Look at all the crystals we can grow! We're going to be rich!" I decided not to burst her happy bubble, and tell her they were worthless.

Sweetie supervised the process and read the instructions aloud, so she would understand what we had to do and what would happen. A week or ten days later, it was time to see what had grown. Pipsqueak was squinting and turning her head and acting like she was afraid of it. When questioned, she said, "I can't look at it!"

"Why?" we asked.

"Because the instructions said, 'No eye contact,'" she stated.

Once we got done giggling, we explained that it was really to "avoid contact with eyes."