Jimmy and I spent 3 1/2 hours on ONE Math lesson today. One. Lesson. What makes it worse is that it was the same lesson he watched the lecture, did the practice problems, & took the lesson quiz twice yesterday & STILL didn’t understand. Last night I told him not to sweat it; that he & I would sit down today, watch the lesson together, redo the practice problems & request a new quiz. We would surely make it through this lesson together.
I had no idea what I was getting myself in for. Holy Math Terminology, Batman. The words, the problems, it was just so. much. math. d=rt. percentages. proportions. If my dreams are made of pretty adjectives and dangling modifiers, the stuff I endured today is the very stuff that makes up my nightmares. For a brief time, I thought I might die.
But we survived…and more than that, something awesome happened in those 3 1/2 hours. We laughed. We smacked ourselves on the forehead. We high-fived. We ate fistfuls of candy corn (but if anyone tells my other kids about that part I will deny it until Jesus returns because what happens at the homeschool table, STAYS at the homeschool table). And when we got a 9 out of 10 on the new lesson quiz we jumped up from the table and whooped and hollered and bumped fists like 2 NBA players who just snatched up the rebound and slammed the winning dunk through the net. We had an absolute blast doing math.
Those few hours may have been about math for Jimmy, but they were about so much more for this tired, old homeschool mom. They were about the privilege of spending a few one-on-one hours with this young boy who is becoming a young man before my very eyes. I don’t know how many more hours like this we will share before he’s all grown up and doesn’t want to high-five me anymore. I feel like my days of making him giggle by filling his fists with candy corn are severely numbered. So I’ll take these moments whenever, wherever, and however they come.
Today I put a word on my list that I never in a million years thought I’d be thankful for: math. Even if it’s only for today, I’m so incredibly thankful for math.
my anchored life: 