A Conspiracy Unmasked

The month closes with events of unfathomable significance. Isabel, who lately has little patience with Matty, is suddenly intrigued by Matty's mathematical inclinations and has spent the evening explaining to him the process for dividing one fraction by another. The little man takes to the task immediately and she sets him one problem after another. I am inclined to question her motives in teaching these things to Matty.  Isabel hates math, although she is generally good at it, and I wonder whether she is grooming her five year old brother to "assist" her with the more tedious aspects of her math homework, which would be all of it.  

In the meantime, poor Nate --who, up until recently, was our budding math genius--is left to tackle his suddenly babyish third grade intro-to-multiplication worksheet (if Suzie has three groups of five pieces of candy, how much candy does she have? Draw a diagram to show your work!). This is a particular waste of his time since he can already multiply very well, thank you. 

Even more surprising:  Emma --the girl who eats a grand total of five different foods, not one of which is spaghetti with tomato sauce--ate a plate full of linguini with marinara sauce tonight and even sent her compliments to the chef.  She did not, however, touch the salad, so there is no need to worry that things are totally out of control. 

Not surprising at all:  despite my goal of finishing my Alpine Lace Shell in the next week or so, it is possible that I may have fished a different project out of cold storage and stuck it in my basket.  Just in case I get (even more) bored with knitting back and forth and back and forth in pink cotton, even though it never makes the slightest difference in the length of the shell.

And last, a word problem for the rest of us: if mommy spends the weekend knitting a really cute hat for her five year old son, what is the probability that he will leave it on the bus the first time he wears it?  Bonus question:  what is the percentage of mothers in the area who could have accurately predicted such a result?

Farewell November. I'm too tired to keep up with you and your tricky ways any longer. All hail December!