Math wizzes

Ok, prepare yourself for some long overdue bragging about my boys. Here goes: They are smart. No, I mean really smart. Ok, Torii is too smart for his own good, but that's another blog post. Now, I know most parents say their kids are smart, but I'm not lying. My kids are smart. I'm especially talking about the boys and math. Over the summer I have learned that my boys not only love math, but they are good at it. I shouldn't be surprised since both of their parents were good at math so I guess it's in their genes.

Before vacation I bought the boys some really great workbooks at Dollar Tree. (I love that store). I brought the books along for something to do in the car, but didn't have real high hopes that the boys would like them. They both loved the math workbooks. Rion was really interested in the multiplication section of his book. I have since found another workbook that is completely multiplication. He knows the easy stuff like multiplying by 1's and some of the 2's. He wanted to do the harder problems, but I told him to work his way to the back of the book. No, he really wanted to do the x10 problems. Fine, those are easy I told him, but instead of letting him in on the hint of just adding a zero to the number he is multiplying by 10 I told him how to figure out the answer by making groups of ten. By the time he got to x3 he had it figured out by himself and he finished the page on his own. He'll be in second grade this fall and I'm not sure if that's when they start multiplication, but either way, he's ahead of the class already.

Torii will be in first grade and his math skills impress me too. They started adding in kindergarten, but it was pretty basic 2+2 math. Torii is adding and subtracting much bigger numbers. I think Torii has taken to math so well because of his love of board games. His favorite game is Monopoly. Not Jr. Monopoly, he abandoned that long ago. He plays standard Monopoly. The first time he landed on Luxury Tax I thought I would have to help him get $75, but he looked at his money and handed me a fifty, twenty and a five. He can get correct change for any property he lands on. It's just when we get deep into the game and we are exchanging large amounts of money for landing on hotels is when he needs help. But really, he's a five year old. The box says ages 8-adult. I think he's doing quite well on Monopoly.

Torii and I also play another math related game we made up. When we are done shopping at Wal-mart I ask him to estimate how many items I bought. We each make a guess and see who is closest. Then we look at the total on the receipt for the answer. The other day he guessed 29 items, but we had 25. Without even thinking he said he was 4 off. "But was that with the video game we purchased earlier in electronics", he asked me. "No it wasn't," I told him. Well he was counting the video game so without thinking again he had to let me know he really was only 3 off. I don't know, that just seems like it would be difficult for a five-year-old to figure out and to figure out so quickly.

Ok, this bragging session has ended. But really, they are smart.

Ruh-roh

Never in my life have I ever stopped watching cartoons. Not in high school. Not in college. And not now. It's the part of me that refuses to grow up. And really a lot of the times, the best thing on TV is cartoons. As a kid I loved Scooby-Doo and now Cordelia loves it too. The other day she was watching it and ran up to me and said, "Oh no! Scooby is in trouble!" She really gets into it. While I still have a certain fondness for the original Scooby-Doo, especially the Scooby-Doo movies which featured guest stars like Batman and Robin, Don Knotts, and the Harlem Globetrotters, I still liked the new "What's New Scooby-Doo" series. But for some reason they stopped making that one and have now put on a new Scooby-Doo series called "Mystery Incorporated". I hated this show the first time I saw it. I was offended that they would screw around with the characters and develop a dating relationship between Shaggy and Velma. I'm still not crazy about the animation, but the series has grown on me. It's a cartoon, but it is definitely aimed at the parents too. There are so many jokes in each episode that only the parents are going to get. While Casey Kasem no longer provides the voice of Shaggy, he does provide the voice for his dad. There was also a Griswold vacation reference thrown in and a Beverly Hills 90210 one too. And I love that Fred is totally oblivious to how much Daphne likes him. A long time ago I had heard that the reason the gang always split up was so Daphne and Fred could have some alone time, if you know what I mean. This new series plays with some of the theories I've heard about the show. It's kind of fun. It's fun to watch Scooby with the kids. They watch it because it's a funny cartoon. I watch it because of the adult humor. It's great.