mathmom's blog

Amanda has been doing the Art of Problem Solving Pre-Algebra course. It's about the opposite of, "do 100 problems almost the same using this technique.  Now do 100 more problems on the next technique."  They stress problem solving, applying techniques in creative ways, and learning through struggling with the topic.  To begin each chapter they give 5-6 problems that illustrate the topics in the chapter.  First the student struggles with the problems and maybe (or maybe not) discovers the methods used in the chapter to solve the problems and why they work.  Then the student reads the chapter to connect what she's learned through struggling with the mathematical theorems. Some of the problems are really hard.  Sometimes Amanda sits staring at a problem not doing anything.  I've encouraged her to write something and she seems to be picking that up.  But it's not always obvious what to do so sometimes I help her to start. The problem is that some...

Eleanor is still gunning for me to dress up as a Star Trek character for Halloween.  I usually go as the scariest person I can think of---a MATH TEACHER!  Today she came up with a compromise. She says I should dress up as the EMH Mark 3: the Emergency Mathematical Hologram.  "Please state the nature of the Mathematical emergency..."

The kids have been getting into Star Trek lately.  I've written about their costumes.  They also have been spouting lines--- Seven of Nine is a favorite: "Efficiency is relative," for example. Luke write a paper about Kill Devil Hills and the Wright Brothers, and he included the Enterprise in his history of flight.  Not sure that's right, but he's just in fourth grade, so who cares? The best part is that he seems to have adopted me as his captain.  He's absolutely tickled that you can call female captains "sir," so sometimes when I ask him to do something he'll stand at attention and say, "Sir!  Yes Sir!" The funny thing is that he actually goes and does it.  If he weren't treating me as a captain, he'd likely argue or complain or put it off.  But when I'm a captain, he obeys.  Now if only I could be more like Janeway...

When I was younger (read: before I had kids) I always thought of leaving as a point in time.  Think of the graph of a line crossing the x-axis at x=2.  When x is less than 2, f(x) is negative.  When x is greater than 2 f(x) is positive, and the graph is only equal to zero at one point, x=2.  Similarly, I thought that leaving was one time, say 12:00.  Earlier than 12, you haven't left, and after 12, you've already left.   This worked pretty well for many years, but then I had kids and the strategy developed problems.  I learned to try to be early to places (if you're not early, then you're late).  I learned to leave time for traffic depending on the time of day.  But even leaving time to be early and for traffic,  I still ended up being late, even when I left at precisely the time I expected. Then I realized that the problem was that it took between 5 and 10 minutes to leave, maybe more if I were leaving for the whole day and ha...

For Halloween this year, the kids have embraced Star Trek.  Amanda is going as a Vulcan (she's dressing as Spock from the reboot movies---no slinky girl-costumes for her!), Luke is going as a pile of Tribbles.  Eleanor wanted to go as Captain Janeway. I love Captain Janeway.  Almost everything she does makes me happy.  So we could have taken a couple of long sleeved t-shirts and done some creative cutting to make a costume.  However, I thought, "I've always wanted to make a real uniform..." This is the costume pattern we bought after a short Google search:  Etsy Pattern The first line of the instructions says that if you are not an experienced costume maker, you should give up and find someone who is.  That may be.  However, there are actually lots of other people online making costumes as well, and some of them post helpful pictures.  This one shows all the pieces and how they go together:  pattern pieces There are other useful...

A few weeks ago we got our new deck furniture and started sitting outside more.  We noticed that a few hummingbirds were flying around.  I have owned a hummingbird feeder in the past: a beautiful pottery feeder given to me by my mother-in-law. We never installed it, because until now there was never a spot to hang the feeder which was both visible from the kitchen (where I spend most of my time) and accessible for changing the food.  The new deck changed that, and so Michael bought a feeder.  Well, about an hour after Michael installed the feeder, there were a few birds zooming by to investigate.  Within the day, the birds were landing and feeding.  They were awesome.  We could sit in the kitchen nook and watch them through the windows, and even made plans to remove some screens so we could watch them more easily. Unfortunately, a few days after we installed the feeder, the hummingbirds seemed to have disappeared.  Probably they migrated south...

In order to keep track of my life, I put a 2x3 foot white board on the pantry door.  I put a simple schedule on it, the meal plan for the week, shopping lists for the various stores, and to do lists.  I've started asking the kids to write things on the board. If we run out of something (chai, for example) and it's not on the list, I have little sympathy.  The only problem is that this leads to children editing the existing lists. For example, I wrote "cough drops" on the list yesterday.  With a little editing, this becomes "cough oreos."  "Granola bars" becomes "granola bears."  Usually, though, the board is used for good. This morning I came down to find that Luke had written on the to do list.  From what I could tell, it read "Microwave Luke's Clothes." Really.  Amanda and I had left before he wrote it.  I texted Michael and he had no idea.  When I got Luke in the car after school I asked him and he burst out laughin...

Amanda is allergic to dairy, which is a problem for buying ice cream.  It doesn't interfere with finding delicious ice cream---that is readily available in all sorts of flavors (Amanda likes Salted Caramel made with coconut milk, for example).  But dairy free ice cream is really tremendously expensive, especially in comparison with the regular ice cream we only buy if it is on a "buy 2 get 3 free" sale.  So Amanda's ice cream is about 3 times as expensive as the dairy ice cream, and comes in little tiny containers that have only 3 servings in them to start.  Very inconvenient. This means that Michael and I were talking about buying an ice cream maker, to cut down on expense, make more flavors, and increase convenience.  After discussing the relative merits of compressor vs. freezer chilled makers, we decided to put off the purchase. A while later we were chatting in the car about liquid nitrogen. Michael explained about the container for carrying liquid nitr...

We went to the nuclear power plant "community day" open house today.  It was a great time.  One of the best parts was seeing the parents teaching kids about electricity generation, chemistry, biology, energy use, and even the politics of nuclear power.  They almost never stopped teaching, even when they were in the line for the ice cream.  I felt like we were all connected, somehow. They had a cherry picker out front.  We got in line right after we arrived so Amanda and Luke were both able to get rides.  The biggest problem the people working the exhibit had was putting the grown-up sized harnesses on kid-sized people.  They didn't cinch them up as tightly as usual, since the children's heads were basically the only part peeking over the bucket--- there was hardly any risk of falling. One of the displays was of energy efficient lightbulbs.  They were giving away CFL's, but when I asked about LEDs the person at the booth said those were much be...

So Eleanor is in a youth orchestra.  It is not the highest, most professional orchestra.  Nor is it the 4th grade orchestra---it's a friendly, non-competitive, musical, not overly serious place to make music and friends. They were handing out music at the beginning of last semester, and for one of the pieces the key signature had a few flats.  "Does anyone know what key this is in?" asked the conductor.  A few people looked at the flats, tried to work out the tonic and dominant, and made a few guesses.  Eleanor, who has not been trained in music theory (probably I should do something about that =) raised her hand.  "E minor."  Wow!  Everyone was super impressed.  How'd she figure it out, they wanted to know. Turns out the title of the piece was "Organ Fugue in E minor."  It pays to have your eyes open!

So while I was out getting a new tire on the van, Luke was at home and he watched some internet videos. He mostly likes Smarter Every Day and Veritasium and Minute Physics, so I am not too worried. But today he said he had seen something really disturbing. "Oh no," I thought, "pornography? Violence? Religion? Politics?" So I asked him. It turns out the disturbing video was about the Banach Tarski paradox, where you disassemble one sphere to make two identical spheres. (See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banach%E2%80%93Tarski_paradox   )   I think I'll keep him.

The other day we had pulled into the gym parking lot.  As Luke was hand-closing the sliding passenger door to our van (because the motor is worn out) he called out "Mom!  Come see!  This is important!" Usually Luke knows the difference between important and unimportant, so I went over to see what he was talking about.  I'm sure I expected some sort of lizard or snake on the ground, but this was actually really important.   What Luke had noticed was a nail or something embedded in the side corner of the tire.  I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have noticed since I'm not on the passenger side of the car very often.  I probably would have driven half way to Durham before the tire blew out and there was a fiery wreck... Well, maybe not a wreck, but a lot of inconvenience. I sent the kids into their gym lesson and  texted Michael.  He was already on his way to pick up the kids, since I had to be in Durham, and he suggested that I start taking of...

Apparently, Luke does not trust me.  He wanted me to wake him up at 1 this morning to watch the Perseid meteor shower, but as he was telling me to "make sure to wake me up," he realized that he has his own alarm clock.  He set it and was ready to go.  I asked the girls if they wanted to be woken up and they declined. He may have had reason to not believe that I would wake him up.  We have tried to wake Luke up in the middle of the night for other astronomical events but he is notoriously difficult to wake up.  I recall shaking and yelling, only to have him roll over and groan.  Last night I was prepared to go into his room to turn off his alarm when he didn't wake up this morning, but it turned out not to be a problem---he was bright eyed and bushy tailed after only about 30 seconds of alarm. (Note: the alarm woke me up without any trouble, even from the other room.) We went out to the darker end of the street and lay down in the damp grass.  We s...

So far today we have: eaten breakfast cleaned off some of the rocks from the lawn made baguette read caught tadpoles, learned about their habitat and made a fishbowl for them done block printing practiced, done some writing,  watched a Star Trek TNG episode  All with surprisingly little arguing and surprisingly little mess. Wow! If every day went like this I might actually enjoy summer "break" a little more... Update: the day ceased to go so smoothly immediately after I wrote this.  I should have known! =)

A few years ago we went to the pool with a friend of Amanda's and her mom and little brother.  The brother was 3 years old and swam like a fish.  Luke was about 3 years old and swam like a... well, he didn't swim so much as walk around the shallow end and fall over, needing to be rescued.  I asked how she taught her son to swim. "Well, every day we go to the pool for a couple of hours in the morning, and then a few more hours in the afternoon for swim team."  Right.  That was obviously not the path Luke would take to swimming well.  They obviously really loved going to the pool.  I did it as a chore out of a sense of obligation to my kids and came home as soon as I felt my duties were discharged. Then the other mom noted that Amanda enjoyed reading a lot, and wanted to figure out how to help her daughter love reading.  "I've even tried getting a magazine or two so she can see me reading, too."  I told her that we just read all the time....

In order to strive to declutter I have been going through boxes in the attic.  One of the boxes I found was my school work from high school.  I think I threw out (or have on floppy disk somewhere) my work from college.  I don't know where my elementary work is, although I'd love to see my story notebook.  But my high school stuff was pretty amusing.  One of the pieces of writing I found was a description of my room in 10th grade.  I wrote it in the form of a detective report, and the assignment was to do some sort of descriptive writing.  I was handing lots of things over to Eleanor to read, so I gave her this one. And now I'm not sure it was a good idea.  I was not a neat child.  I have improved, thanks to maturity, guilt, and having 3 small people around who make even bigger messes than I could.  But in high school... Eleanor's response was to tell me, "Now I never have to clean my room again!  You were messier than I am!" I...

I started blogging a few years ago when the kids were young.  I had all sorts of funny kid stories and not enough time to tell them to Michael, grandparents, anyone who might be interested.  In addition my life was filled with quiet tasks that didn't require much attention or talking, and I thought about how to tell all these stories I had no one to tell. So I wrote, first in my head and then on the blog. Then the kids started growing up.  I could tell them the stories about what Luke had done (for instance) and they would appreciate the story.  Also, they started telling me stories and I didn't have as much time to make up my own stories.  So I stopped writing, except for exceptional events. Recently I had to answer a questionnaire about Luke's early days.  I didn't remember and I certainly didn't write them down in his baby book (not that I could find the baby book) (sorry, Luke), so I went back and read my blog.  Wow!  I didn't remember hal...

We recently did a large landscaping project (as I mentioned earlier) and it is really beautiful.  However, since we did it immediately before one of the worst heat waves of the summer, all the new plants need water.  Every day. So, instead of having a yard which we spent maybe 30 minutes a week on (20 minutes mowing and 10 minutes pulling weeds) we now have a yard which we spend 30 minutes per day watering and 1.5 hours per week mowing.  It strikes me that the time commitment is similar to walking a dog or taking care of some other pet, but with less fur. To be clear, the yard when we spent 30 minutes per week on it was very unsatisfying and not enjoyable.  And the new yard offers a satisfying beauty and peace that a cat would not (and there are no vet bills).  I'm thinking that we just need to re-evaluate how much time it takes to take care of a yard that we enjoy, and spend the time accordingly so we don't spend the money later. Probably there are some l...

For the past two summers I have participated in a "String Quartet Workshop" run by my viola teacher.  I am so very glad that I have gotten to go do this! I am working with 3 other adults, I play the all important viola part.  We get the piece in June and go over it a few times together before meeting with our coach.  I bring it to my lesson because without that extra help I'd be pretty lost---the others have all been playing for years in the orchestra.  I wonder if the others feel like she spends lots of time correcting their playing, but it's because she's already told me the same thing (usually several times) in our lesson. Then we have 6 hours coaching all together.  When we work with our coach she helps us play the music, not just the notes.  For example, she told us about "Mozart quarter notes."  They're not staccato, nor legato, there is just a slight breath between the notes. She tries to help us end lightly and easily and together (althou...

The other day I was helping Luke pack for camp.  I told him to get one of the old towels from the stack in my room, and he came back with one of the towels we got from our wedding.  "No, no, I meant one of the old towels," by which I really meant one of the ones our parents had given us to cushion the furniture when we moved down here after graduating. Then it hit me: the ones from our wedding are old.  They are all over 20 years old.  My friend recommended that we save out a wedding present towel and start using it on our 10th anniversary, but even that towel has been used for about 12 years and is no different than the other towels.   I still remember who gave them to us: Aunts and Uncles, Friends of my mother and Michael's family, and so on.  At one point we bought a new set, but that was before Eleanor was born and so is older than her.  The only new-ish towels we have are the ones the kids got with their names on them. I remember being ...

A few years ago (well, maybe about 4 or 5...) when Luke was around 4 years old I read a book called " Managers of Their Homes ."  It was about being organized with homeschooling, housework and taking care of children.  The main gist of the book was that everyone had certain tasks to accomplish during the day, and in order to figure out how to fit everything in you first make lists of everyone's important tasks and then make a schedule for everyone, in half hour blocks, to fit the important tasks in.  Nice idea, I thought, but that would never work for me or for any of my kids.  Every day is always different, and the kids would surely hate being scheduled for every single half hour! Fast forward to this summer.  I really don't like making my kids do a lot over the summer (ask me how I squandered spent my summers sometime).  But I do think that kids should contribute to the running of the house, and they need to practice, and keeping up with writing over...

Eleanor now has had one of her ears pierced 3 times.  But it's not what you think! I got my ears pierced at Southdale Mall when I was 12.  My grandma and mom went with me.  It was quite the occasion, a sort of coming-of-age ritual.  So when Eleanor turned 12 I offered to let her get her ears pierced too.  She declined.  It was made more complicated by the fact that Michael insisted that she get it done at the doctors office---I didn't even believe they did ear piercings, but apparently that is a service they offer. Starting this spring Eleanor decided she wanted to get her ears pierced, so we went in a few weeks ago to get them done. When we got home we noticed that the back of one of the earrings was dipping low behind her ear so it was visible in the front.  Michael said, "Call the doctor" and they told us to take it out and wait 2 weeks.  It was hard to get out! But we did, and the hole healed up nicely. Then we went in yesterday to get i...

We went to the pool yesterday and there was a younger woman with 2 kids, maybe 5 and 6 years old.  As I watched her with the kids I became convinced that she wasn't their mom. "Don't be ridiculous.  She's beautiful and younger, but not too young to be these kids' mom.  She has an accent, but many people in this neighborhood are from somewhere else.  Don't make assumptions," I told myself.  But I watched her and I was interested to know what about their behavior ticked off my "mom" radar.  I saw that when she spoke and asked the kids to do or not do something, she didn't speak with any authority---she could tell them to do something, but she had no power to make it happen.  "We're not sitting up there right now." "Don't jump in by the steps!" "If you jump on the inflatable shark it might pop, just like the last one."  In the first case the kid looked at her and thought about whether to obey and then di...

We've been having some landscaping done at our house, and we've been listening to The Two Towers.  This has made for some interesting renaming. We have some "dry riverbeds" to help with drainage. The side river is called Anduin, I think. We used to have a large non-landscaped forest area full of underbrush and small trees.  We called it the "unfinished space."  It has been cleaned up significantly and had pine straw laid on the ground, so it isn't "unfinished" anymore.  It has become Fangorn, and the dry riverbed in it is now the Entwash. We have a waterfall which is Rauros.  We have some stairs which are the Dimril Stair.  We have a new deck which is Caras Galadhon. I suppose our house is Rivendell maybe? I have to consult the location scouts for their opinions.

It's just too hard to remember the kids names.  I know we picked them out and all, but it gets to be a bit much remembering who has already done something or who needs to do something. Also, if Amanda looks like Eleanor used to look, why can't I call her Eleanor.  I'm not sure who that teenager lurking around the house is... So I have a solution.  They are no longer "Eleanor, Amanda and Luke," they are, "Tall Girl, Shorter Girl, and Boy."  If I get those confused I can always revert to, "Hey you!  Over there! No, the other one!" as I do now.

So Eleanor is now about 4 inches taller than me.  I'm not exactly sure how that happened... The other day, when I needed something off a high shelf in the kitchen, I called to her, "Eleanor, could you bring your tallness in here and help me out?" She responded, "Don't you mean, 'your Highness?'" Right.  Reason #4581 why I like hanging around with Eleanor.

My father-in-law once told me that one of the reasons he did not like working for his parents was that they never praised him.  It got me started thinking about how I would like my kids to do work for me and how I like to work.  Here are some ideas I have. You could do it faster by yourself.  This is not the point: the point is that when they are 20 and find themselves with something that needs to be done, they know how to do it or at least how to work at a task that is difficult until it's done. Work with children needs to be limited.  There is no end to work: I frequently find myself tidying up, "just one more thing," over and over and it never seems to be done.  We wash, fold and put away the clothes only to put our dirty clothes in the laundry basket as we go to bed.  This is depressing to me, but to a child who just wants to get away and have fun it is excruciating.  So it makes sense to artificially limit the work and provide an end point to w...

So we went to the zoo yesterday, but this time we went with a 14, 13, 11 and 9 year old (a friend came along).  Boy oh boy was it different from when we went with a 6, 4 and 2 year old. Everyone liked to spend time actually looking at the animals.  The parakeet auklet was swimming under the water and splashing up a storm---great!  The polar bear was pacing around---we wondered what he had been doing.  They counted the number of bird species they saw in the aviary. They watched and observed and learned things. Eleanor: "What would you call a bright orange flamingo?  A Fla-mango!" The girls all loved the cats, especially the sand cat.  They made up stories about what the cat was thinking.  It certainly was a beauty. They actually read the signs.  All by themselves.  I didn't have to read them out loud.  Fabulous! No one complained about lunch. Or about not going to the extra cost high ropes course, carousel and 4D movie.  In fac...