Walking entropy

Fair warning: Those who thought the Magellan post was a little science-y should feel free to roll their eyes at me and scroll right on down to the photo below. Those who enjoyed it are invited to indulge me again briefly. Hey, you can take the chemist out of the lab, but...

I thought I understood the Second Law of Thermodynamics pretty well before. It's always been my favorite one. In Chem 112, there was nobody wishing harder than I that the ball Professor Jean dropped on the table would fly back into the air. Living with a toddler, though, has brought me to a new understanding of entropy. (For the less science-inclined who decided to brave it anyway, entropy is really just disorder. Spontaneous changes tend toward an increase in entropy--a decrease in organization.) I always understood entropy as something that just happened. Disorder reigns supreme. Well, in this house, disorder definitely reigns supreme, but entropy doesn't just happen. It lives here. In fact, a little bundle of it is sleeping right now in a crib upstairs. A bundle of entropy seems like a contradiction in terms, but I really think that's exactly what a toddler is. Wherever she goes, entropy just explodes out of her. If you had been here to look around this house right after bedtime, you'd have found rice under the table (fine), shoes on the stairs (okay), a spatula on the stairs (hmmm...), return address labels on the back of my shorts (in case of amnesia, I suppose), a contact lens case in the pantry (duh), a bowl of cereal in the bathroom (you never know), the contents of my wallet in a plastic bowl under the dining room table (very handy) and, let's see, yes, photos of Rachel's grandparents under the coffee table (of course). This list doesn't include the toys and books scattered about, but that seems more to be expected, somehow. This is as nothing compared with the time my friend Carey found twenty pieces of silverware in her bed, but, still, I find it fascinating. Each day brings a new sense of wonder at where she'll think to put things next. And once we're living in "yeyyow house" (still her requested destination every time we get in the car--we think she's as excited to move as we are!) there will be a wealth of new places to put and find things. So fun.

Okay, I said there would be a photo. Here's Rachel, sharing both her new chair and her O's with Elmo. She's really taken to personifying her toys and dolls lately--feeding and changing them, mostly. She fed an O to a photo of herself as a newborn today. Very cute.