Friday, November 20, 2009

When Mom Can't Do Math


Everyone who knows me well, knows that I am mathematically impaired. Seriously. When the boys were little, I sold Avon and the worst part was keeping track of the math for the orders. I always used a calculator of course, but I remember a time when Jeff looked at a bagged order, with the bill attached and said, "Karin, this bill is wrong. Couldn't you tell just by looking that $3.45 + 4.50 + 7.50 could not possibly equal $32.55?

Um... No. I hadn't even noticed.

Ahhhhh.....

So, you will understand my distress when my children bring home their math homework when Jeff is out of town. Jillian's fifth grade class is doing geometry.

G.E.O.M.E.T.R.Y.

I flunked geometry.

Something about logic and shapes...and more logic, that I just didn't grasp.

My brain is not logical in the least. Practical, maybe. But not logical. I equate logical with b.o.r.i.n.g. and to sit staring at an algebra or geometry book makes my face want to slide off my skull.

Fortunately, my husband is very gifted in all things math and his brain is able to understand why a+b -c+s could possibly = y. For me? I don't even know why anyone would even care about knowing that.

But anyway.... Jillian had a geometry PROJECT this week. Yes. Being her mother's daughter, she waited until 8PM the night before it was due, to actually work on it. And then she asked ME to help her. With lots of tears. My heart ached and we Go*gled things, but there was little to be done. Finally, in desperation, I begged Taylor for help. With great exasperation--and muttering things like, "How could anyone not know this stuff?" he came over and gave Jillian the answers. This brought a whole new slew of tears because she then realized she had done a large part of her project incorrectly.

Just shoot me now.

It was 9:30. I convinced her to just go to bed. There was nothing to be done about it at that time of night. She's only 10, so she could not pull an all-nighter getting it done.

The poor little thing went off to school this morning, with her project sheathed in a plastic bag--to protect it from the "Nor Easter" (ie: driving rain) we're getting today.

And I...well, I have no plans to try to improve my math skills (BORING), but next time, I hope we can start the project early enough to Skype Jeff for help.