Day 103 -- Take Your Child to Work Day

Maddie was lucky to be able to go with Jared to "Take Your Child to Work Day" today. Funny enough, there is no "Take Your Spouse to Work Day" so I have never seen where Jared works. The island where the lab is stationed is highly quarantined and guarded. Visitors are severely restricted. So, when they gave Maddie the opportunity to go spend the day with her dad, I couldn't resist. Who wouldn't rather ride on a boat than go to school?

I will say though, it is funny to hear what she did -- definitely not designed by a mother:

• Visiting the security office to monitor people on the 160 security cameras on the island. Showing them how people's picture comes up when their card is scanned so the guards can match the picture to the person at the door. Monitoring the cows as they progress from pen to pen, etc.
• Learning how fingerprinting works in combination with magnets(still not totally clear myself what they did)
• Basic cow anatomy -- Cow tongue, lungs, stomach, fetus, liver and other organs preserved in formaldehyde for the children to view and touch. Complete with a demonstration on a how a cow fetus sits in the uterus, it's birth and separation of umbilical cord. Yep. Cow anatomy lab for a six-year-old. Really???
• Basic microscope work -- cells and sea monkeys were the highlight here
• Ambulance and fire engine tour (the island has their own private fleet) where she got to turn on the lights and siren. She also got to see the heat sensing camera for finding people in smoky rooms. Toppers -- they have a practice fire and the kids got to use fire extinguishers to put it out. Yeah! Playing with fire! Again, not a mother's design, but a kid's delight
• An island tour complete with catching a snake for all the kids to touch, seeing the herd of resident seals, the lighthouse and WWII batteries.
• A lesson on how many toes different animals have. Example a horse has one toe but a cow has two. Why is this important? The disease Jared studies infects animals with two toes. I think.