mathmom's blog

Whenever I try to make dinner for some particular time, it ends up being served half an hour later. This is very frustrating. It is the more frustrating because as a mathematician, you would think I could figure this out. If f(t) is the time dinner is actually served at when the input is the time I am aiming for, then f(t)=t+30 minutes. So if I want the time I serve dinner at to be a particular time, I should just aim 30 minutes earlier: f(t-30)=t. But there is some subtle paradox I am having trouble with: the input has to be the time I'm trying to serve dinner at, so I can't plan for the output to be the time I'd like to have dinner. This analysis doesn't even include helpful children, making the calculation even trickier. Ah, the paradoxes of everyday life. It's a good thing I have my degree in math, or I'd never be able to analyze this... =)

Amanda has taken to doing math before bed instead of reading stories. I'm not sure I understand, but I do enjoy---we've looked at addition, subtraction, multiplication, roman numerals, symmetry, and so on. If you have any ideas for what to cover next, I'd love to hear them! One night I decided to look at math in music---specifically, some patterns in the violin piece she's been practicing. I told her that we would be doing music math that night, and she said skeptically, " Ooookaaaay ..." She seemed to enjoy the subject. But afterward, she said that she was a bit surprised. "I thought that by math music, you meant something like 'One violin plus one violin equals one banjo, and one banjo plus one banjo equals one guitar!" I guess I know what she thinks of banjos... =)

Froggie went missing for a few days last week---actually only 3 days. We cleaned up the house completely, looked in all the unlikely places we'd found Froggie before (in the tablecloth/napkin basket in the dining room, in the sleeping bag stored in our closet, underneath all the sinks, behind and under the couches...) We finally found him in Luke's room, under the pillow of the seat of his rocking chair. Fortunately, I hadn't yet purchased the one I found on ebay for a ridiculous price. The most difficult thing about the whole episode (aside from cleaning the house, including the drawers in the bathrooms, the closets, etc.) was how much Luke missed and needed Froggie. He spent much more time sitting on my lap. He refused to say that Froggie was lost, but just"on vacation." At the beach. He told me every day that we needed to go to the beach. One day, as he was sitting on my lap, he told me "Froggie is on vacation. He's trying and trying and tryin...

The other day, Amanda made a beautiful collage of Loveland with hearts, rainbows, foam glitter stars, and a happy picture of Amanda. Apparently, it was a picture of "putting joy back together." At the bottom of the page, Amanda had glued a plain strip of black paper, on which she had written "unloved land." At dinner that night, when I was admiring the picture, Ella complained that Amanda put her into unloved land. "That's not very nice, Amanda," I said. Amanda explained that Loveland was for people who were calm and peaceful (and smug, apparently). "I'm calm and peaceful," said Amanda, "and you're not." I was about to try to rescue the situation somehow, when Ella stood up, banged the table, and said loudly, "I am too calm and peaceful!" Amanda smiled. Fortunately for our family, there is room for calm and excitable people in the world. Fortunately for me, Michael came home that minute, so I was spared any ...