Thursday, September 30, 2010

Story problems were never my strong suit...

Yesterday I ran out of embroidery floss for a project I was working on.  Which meant a trip to the craft store with all my kids in tow.  Always a good time. (I'm holding up my sarcasm sign right now, just FYI...) Anyway, Jake was helping me find the colors I needed.  He found the right shade of green and wanted me to buy two of them so that I wouldn't run out again.  I told him that one little skein would be more than enough to finish the project.  He asked, "Is it more than 10 feet of floss?"  I looked at the label and noted that one skein was 8.7 yards.  I then proceeded to try to do the math in my head for about a minute and a half, during which time I actually had to ask my 7 year old, "What is 8 times 3?"  He muttered something under his breath that sounded like "...8 less than 32..." then answered, "24."  I said, "Okay, this floss is more that 24 feet long, so I think it will be plenty." He demanded how I knew so I showed him where it said 8.7 yards and told him a yard was 3 feet, and was feeling pretty pleased with myself for that little teaching moment... for about 30 seconds or so until he said, "Actually Mom, it's 26 feet."  I stopped in my tracks and stared at him for a moment, then whipped out my phone to use the calculator.  He saw what I was doing and said in a deeply wounded tone, "Are you checking my math?"  And he was right!  I don't know how he does it, and it might make me feel bad except for the fact that I know he still needs me for lots of things.

For instance:


This awesome outfit he put together the other morning. When he came upstairs to get breakfast I said, "Um, I don't think that shirt really works with those shorts, Buddy."  He looked himself up and down and then said, "What?! They match and then they match more.  Red and red, blue and blue...."  Oh my.  I did convince him to change for a plain red shirt.  See. He still needs me, even if I can't do simple addition without counting on my fingers...

3 comments:

Emilie said...

Oh my goodness.

Well, at least you will always have an in-house tutor for math should your daughters not have quite the natural,phenomenal ability their older brother has.

Amanda said...

I have a feeling he might be depending on your wardrobe expertise for quite some time. It's good to be needed, isn't it?

Emilie said...

When I told Kevin about the little "story problem" he said, "He really IS Sheldon Cooper isn't he."

Thankfully, Jake has far more people skills.