You had to be there

My apologies for another math-related story so soon, but that's apparently what's on the agenda around here lately. Listen in on this morning's conversation between the 8-year-old Mr. Math and the 6-year-old Miss I-won't-be-outdone.

Levi (after hearing that you can multiply larger numbers easily by multiplying the first numbers and then adding the zeros): "So, 60 times 60 is, 3600?"

Mom (struggling, in the bathroom, to get the blond girls' hair into ponytails before church): "Yes."

Levi: "And so, 80 times 60 is...4800? And 90 times 90 is....8100?!"

Mom: Yep.

Levi (turning to Delaney, who is ready to go and waiting patiently): "Delaney, what's 90 times 90?"

Delaney: "I don't even know what 'times' means."

Levi: Okay, it's like, 2 times 2 means, take two, two times."

Delaney: "Four."

Levi: "Right. And 2 times 3 means take 2, three times. Or take 7, 3 times, is 7 times 3. Or you can take 21, divide it by 3, and that' s 7."

Delaney: "I don't even know what divide means."

Levi: "Division is easy. You just take the bigger number and figure out how many times the little number takes to get there. Like, 12 divided by 3...count by 3's until you get to 12."

Delaney: "3, 6....9....12!"

Levi: "Good. So what's 12 divided by 3?"

Delaney: "12?"

Levi: "No. Four."

Delaney (immediately, in pure form, putting a quick end to further math instruction, starts singing a song from The Jungle Book movie they had watched earlier in the week): "Look for the, bare necessities, the simple bare necessities. Forget about your worries and your strife....yeah man!"

Life on this road

As many of you know, we do not live on a quiet, secluded road. At all. I could write a whole book about things that have happened just because we live on this road.

One of these things happened again this afternoon. Many, many semi-trucks go past every day, a fact we may get used to in about 30 years -- maybe. Many of them apparently like to talk on their CB's while driving, and snippets of their conversations get picked up and broadcast through various electronic devices in our home -- usually the baby monitor.

Today, the perfect storm arrived: one talktative trucker spouting very non-uplifting words, one baby monitor, two computer speakers, one television playing a children's video. The five-second spurt of vulgarity came through astoudingly loud and clear. Let's just say it did not go unnoticed. Levi shouts from the living room: "Mom! Something just came through the TV, and it wasn't winnie-the-pooh!"

Cold Virus Attack -- a haiku

It hits all seven
Sniff blow wipe cough hack repeat
I need hot jello*

(*You'll have to ask my mom. I have no idea why. But it works.)

doo-in skool

• So, we're in India. Educationally geographically, not physically geographically. Levi sits down and reads this book. As he gets further in, he gets more intense. When he reaches the end, with fold-out pages of elephants carrying all the rice the heroine has sharply gained from the raja by understanding the power of doubling, he is near bursting. Then, the final page, the one many kids might ignore, shows the exact numbers that come from 30 days of doubling, starting at one. He reads, aloud, each and every number. All the way to 536, 870, 912. And, then, in his astonishment at discovering this new level of mathmatical truth, he reads the numbers again -- aloud -- to his could-care-less brother and sisters who were playing. He is flabbergasted. He is high on math.

• Speaking of numbers, Levi and Delaney got into a quite heated argument during lunch one day about whether there really was a "ten hundred". Delaney proves her point (yes, there is) with her counting prowress -- "800....900...1000 (ten hundred)". Levi shoots back: "No, there's no ten hundred! It's 1,000 ("a thousand"). Back and forth they go. Question: are you really supposed to stop sibling arguments like this as a parent? (Yes, they ended up taking the matter to Daddy, who explained how they were both right)

• In a move that has brightened the week around here considerably for the teacher, we bought a small laminator (Aldi special this week!). Levi and I were laminating fools -- geography game pages, cursive practice sheets, who knows what else I might feed in there?! I will laminate the cat if it keeps trying to sneak in to my warm house through the pantry.

• Finally, something that made our hearts melt. An unsolicited poem, by Delaney, which she delivered to my desk last week and which she says is her first ever.

Delaney's Palm

The world is so Big that i want to see all of it.

When my words do no justice

Acts 2:37-39 Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Men and brethren, what shall we do?” Then Peter said to them, “Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is to you and to your children, and to all who are afar off, as many as the Lord our God will call.”


Levi -- February 3, 2008

Yes, folks, it's game night

A small glimpse, for your entertainment, of what family game night actually looks like at our house...

*It's Sara's night to choose the game, and, inexplicably, she pulls out Monopoly. She does not like games that require much sitting still and decision making. Especially Monopoly with SEVEN people. But she says excitedly, "I pick Monopoly!" We believe it has something to do with the enjoyment of lining up piles of money.

*I finish reading my Newsweek article while Eric passes out all the money and Levi sets up the cards. I consider this a great perk of being The Mom. The Mom is not in charge during game night. She has just cooked The Pizzas.

*Leah makes it exactly two rounds. She frowns deeply when we pull $200 from her stack for the income tax and frowns even more deeply after we tell her she can't roll the dice in a manner as dangerously as she did the first round. She tells me she wants to be on my team and that I can have all her money, then exits to go play "kids and dog". Jesse leaves one round later.

*The rules are, whoever has the most assets in one hour is declared the winner. Delaney immediately leans toward hoarding, and considers it beneficial when she ends up in jail twice. Levi refuses to believe that the game will actually eventually be over, and is torn between buying more properties and (strangely) asking to mortgage them to get more cash (what are we teaching him?). Eric can't roll higher than three all night unless he's landed on my electric company and has to pay me four times the roll. So, even though this never, ever happens, I get lots of doubles, buy everything I can, zoom around the board and end up winning.

*My first property purchase of the night, on my very first turn (I'm usually a conservative Monopoly player), brought this winning quote of the night from Levi: "Wow, $150, are you sure? That's a lot of money for a mom."

Which one of these is not like the other...

...which one of these, doesn't belong?*
Read these quotes from yesterday and see if you can guess correctly:


"Mom! Levi got hit with the binocular-thingys!"
"That cat is using our screen for a claw sharpener."
"Jesse spilled milk on me. But it wasn't my fault."
"Honey, there was a small explosion in the office."
"Do I have to use soap in the shower?"


*Bonus points for finishing the lyrics of that song in the comments!