Addition

So much has changed since I was in third grade.

First of all, sitting on the floor with your legs crossed in front of you was 'Indian style'. Nowadays that's called sitting 'criss cross apple sauce'.

Second, every morning I tell my kids to go get their backpacks off the hook that stands right next to the back door. Every afternoon as we pull in to the garage I remind them to put their backpacks back on the hook where they belong. And every time I say this The Girl reminds me that what she is carrying is not a backpack... even though she puts all her stuff in it and throws it on her bag with the shoulder strap...It's now called a "book bag".

Whatever.

So with all this change I began to think that perhaps the new thing in education was to not force kids to memorize their math facts with the use of flash cards. These days the math instruction is all about "thinking", not just rote memorization so I thought that perhaps we wouldn't have need the flash cards.

It seems that I was wrong.

Two days ago The Boy came home and said that he needed to find some flash cards and get his facts memorized. So I hauled out the old flash cards that I bought when he was three months old.

I was a new Mom who had read an article about the miracle of teaching your baby how to do algebra before he cuts his first teeth would increase their IQ and make them geniuses. Of course I also boiled everything that came within twenty feet of that poor child, and flash cards don't hold up to boiling so I scrapped the idea.

The point being that I had addition and subtraction flash cards that have seen more moves than Madonna in a yoga class. Somehow, 9 years and three houses later, I have still managed to keep them in a place that I could readily find them. But I digress...

Here is the sad part...as a child I memorized my multiplication facts, but never really got around to memorizing my addition and subtraction facts. So while my son is doing a fantastic job of memorizing his flash cards, his math deficient mother is still adding on her fingers.

Honestly, it's kind of scary. On a different subject, things have been so very crazy here that I completely missed the first day of fall. Which is very sad because I love recognizing the first days of the season changes. The weather is beautiful and the leaves are starting to change, and as I write I am wearing my super soft and fuzzy, lilac colored wind jacket that the Hubby bought for my birthday last year. It just makes me happy to be snuggled in its coziness.

Yesterday I hauled out the brown corduroy pants that I bought last season and it was fun to be dressed in fallish clothes. I almost pulled out my favorite pinkish red sweatshirt but we can't pull all the favorite cold weather clothes out too early because winter isn't exactly my favorite time of year, and I get a little sick of being cooped up in warm clothes...So it's better to hold out as long as I can.

I am greatly anticipating the un-veiling of Cookie though. Cookie is my cookie-monster-blue heating blanket that is almost makes me as happy from November to March as a cup coffee and chocolate chip cookies. I blogged about that last year though so I will spare you another post about my love of blankets.

Ok, last but not least, I am running in another little 5k this weekend and, as with all races, whether long or short, I always hope that I can finish without embarrassing myself! You know you getting old when you run and then have to come home a take a nap.

Which is what I feel like doing after this mornings run. But there is no time for naps.

I have to go brush up on my addition...3rd grade is killing me.