What is it about my step-girls that makes me realize I’m not a spring chicken anymore? First, like every time I’m in the car with the girls it never fails that some great song comes on, taking me back to college or high school. I’m jammin’. And then some used-to-be-cute voice pipes up, “Geez, this is an old song! They must be playing throwbacks this hour.” Thanks, girls. Second is every time I have to be the responsible adult. Boo. And third? Third is every time I try to help the girls with their math homework. It’s like my brain has these concepts stored in the dustiest, most cobweb-y parts. Trying to remember how to do problems AND explain the concepts in a meaningful way makes my head hurt.
The girls came over this weekend. Brandon had to work the whole time so I got pretty much full parental duty. This included being nag/cheerleader/teacher in regards to homework.
The little one, Jade, had her work done. I’ve actually been pretty impressed with her self-starting habits. Mae on the other hand…she is incredibly smart but hasn’t really been applying herself. In fact she hasn’t done much in the way of completing homework. Particularly math. So unfortunately Mae’s big project was finishing about seven math packets.
Pythagorean Theorem–have you heard that in a while? Yeah, probably not. Unless you have a 13 year old.
On Sunday we sat down and hammered it out for about five hours. I’m not kidding. She pulled out her notes. I pulled up good ol’ Bing. Away we went. Yes, we took a couple breaks. And I did feed us. But by the end of the day my butt hurt from sitting, my head ached from thinking, I was tired of looking at triangles and graphs, and I wanted to strangle whoever created story problems.
I tried to stay positive and keep encouraging Mae. “You know, I’m really proud that you’ve taken your work so seriously today.”
“Yeah, I know I need to do better with my schoolwork.”
“Well, you’ve done a good job of buckling down.”
“Yeah… I hate triangles.”
“Yeah, me too. Me too.”
2nd Time Is A Charm 
I was reading your latest blog post when I saw this one and decided to read it … thinking …”ohhh … math post!”
In a sad, sad, confession of geekdom … I admit, me and my wife are math nerds.
And while I may be saying in my head, “GOooooo Triangles!” … and … start to rattle of the value of pi to the nearest 11th decimal place, I will commiserate with your Seahawk woes of the day … but I will do so on this post (and not the one you did today), in an attempt to hide from anyone who might know me, that I am dissing those pesky hawk fans. 🙂
Hahaha! Tricksy are we?
I wish I liked math more. It would have been so very helpful.