Never Underestimate the Power of Bubbles!

I went up to visit my cousin and his wife at their beach house a few weeks ago. Almost as an afterthought, I threw a half dozen tubes of bubbles in my bag - I like bubbles. When I arrived, the two grandchildren, 3 and 6, were variously watching television and playing with an array of electronic devices. They barely looked up when I entered the room. Eventually, we left the house and spent a lovely afternoon boating and swimming, returning to the house in time for dinner. It's always a chore to get dinner for a lot of people to the table, and the youngest natives were getting restless when I remembered those bubbles. I got them and we went outside - and they could not possibly have been more of a success. The kids were blowing them, chasing them, watching my grown-up bubble ability (really big ones, or lots and lots at once, etc.) They were running around, laughing, and the six year old even made a scientific discovery - he figured out, and informed me, that when you blow really hard at a medium size bubble, it turns into lots of smaller bubbles. I tried it, he was completely correct. It was very satisfying to see how those bubbles engaged those kids. Yay for the simple and magical bubble!